


Your Ghost Inside My Head

by Havendale



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreamsharing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Psychic Bond, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 54,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27129058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Havendale/pseuds/Havendale
Summary: Post-Season 9. During the Apocalypse, Gabriel invaded Sam’s dreams to try to convince him to say yes to Lucifer. Years later, as Sam chases after his missing brother, he begins to have bizarre dreams of other places and other times – dreams that make him suspect Gabriel may still be alive.
Relationships: Castiel & Sam Winchester, Gabriel/Sam Winchester
Comments: 37
Kudos: 98
Collections: Long Sabriel Fics (20K+)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Goes AU right after Season 9, though with some nods to the start of Season 10. A few lines of dialogue are borrowed from the series – if you recognise it, I didn’t write it. 
> 
> I haven’t included detailed warnings for this one as it’s on the longer side and I didn’t want to risk leaving something out. Though I feel like early Season 10!Sam is his own warning. In any case, the M rating is purely for violence/torture, so if you’re squicked by that sort of thing you may want to proceed with caution. 
> 
> Re: pairings - you probably won’t like this very much if you don’t like Sabriel, but it's more shippy gen than anything. So, er, don’t be too disappointed? 
> 
> Title from “Gwenivere” by Captain Tractor. Loving thanks to B. for beta-reading.

Two hundred-odd miles out of Helena, where a string of unexplained deaths – “No such thing as unexplained deaths these days,” said Dean over breakfast, “just deaths where you don’t want to know the explanation.” – had turned out to be the work of neither angels nor demons, but a mildly psychic insurance broker who’d had a vision of the end of days, Sam found himself slipping slowly into sleep, resting his head against the passenger side window.

He was tired all the time these days. It was rare now that he slept through the night. Back in the first few weeks after they’d started working together again, he’d noticed Dean eying him whenever he waved the waitress over to refill his coffee cup or ripped open one of those little caffeinated chocolate bars. Finally, one evening, Sam had snapped at him to just come out and say what was on his mind.

Dean hadn’t answered right away. He’d looked at Sam as if he was assessing him. _Checking for weaknesses,_ Sam thought. At last Dean said, half-accusingly: “Is he in your dreams?”

Sam winced. But it was a fair question. In Dean’s place he’d probably have asked the same thing. “No,” he said, truthfully, “not since the first time.”

He’d been afraid at first that Lucifer would haunt his dreams till he went insane and gave in. But maybe a “yes” didn’t count if you had to drive your vessel out through the other side of sanity to get it. Or maybe Lucifer just had other things to do. Even the Prince of Darkness has to pick up the dry-cleaning, Sam said to Dean, trying to make a joke. Dean didn’t laugh. It was just stress, Sam explained, and ordinary nightmares. 

In the old days Dean would have said something sarcastic about aromatherapy, or else offered to head to the nearest bar and get Sam laid. Instead he shrugged. “All right,” he said. “Just make sure your head’s still in the game.”

Sam bristled instinctively. But it wasn’t really Dean’s fault. In the back of his mind, he’d heard his dad: _We can’t afford mistakes, son. Not in this life. We make a mistake, people die._

It didn’t matter anyway, Sam thought to himself. These days people died whether they made mistakes or not.

The car shuddered over a set of railway tracks. “– back in North Dakota tomorrow,” Dean was saying. Sam lifted his head automatically, then realised Dean wasn’t talking to him. “Yeah, you too. Take care of yourself, man.”

Cas, then. Dean never sounded that bright – that much like his old self – when he was talking to anyone else. Sam couldn’t even find it in himself to be jealous. He was just relieved some part of Dean was still capable of finding happiness in anything.

They’d got to Helena in time to catch Murray Greyson, formerly of Big Sky Insurance, before he completed the ritual he’d cobbled together. Not in time, however, to stop him from killing his last victim. Dylan Kovalenko, aged seven, was still dressed in his Superman pyjamas when Dean carried his body out of the storage unit where Greyson had cut his throat.

“I had to do it,” Greyson sobbed, when they caught up with him. “I had to get God’s attention. It’s the only way He’ll save us. You don’t understand. I didn’t _want_ to.”

Before they left town, they’d salted and burnt Dylan’s body. Neither of them wanted to do it, but they couldn’t risk a ghost coming back to wreak vengeance on the town. Afterwards Dean had called the police from a burner phone. Sam tried not to think about somebody having to identify Dylan Kovalenko from what remained of his teeth. Tried not to think about Dylan’s parents, whom they’d interviewed a day earlier, back when they’d still had hope. Tried not to think about anything at all.

The black road unrolled itself in front of the car. Bars of gold light came slicing down. _One, two, three…_ Back when he was a little kid, when he was overtired and his dad was ready to snap if he went on talking, Dean used to play a game: challenging him to count to a hundred streetlamps, a hundred and fifty, two hundred. He never made it to more than thirty before nodding off. _Eight, nine, ten…_

“Wanna pick a station?”

Sam blinked. Dean nodded at the radio. It wasn’t his brother, Sam realised, not really: this Dean was a good five years younger, his face softer. He clapped Sam on the shoulder.

“Go on,” he said, “see if there’s something worth listening to.”

It was a memory, he realised, not just a dream. He’d been sulking over something – they’d fought over the stupidest shit back then. Asking him to pick the music had been sort of a peace offering. Back then Sam had told his brother to go to hell.

“Sure,” he said now. “Thanks, Dean.”

He reached for the radio –

 _“Be watchful,”_ snarled an inhuman voice, _“and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.”_

Sam recoiled. He shot a glance at Dean, who smiled at him, not kindly. Fingers fumbling, he tried another station.

_“Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief –”_

His stomach rolled with sudden queasiness. Dean, still smiling, shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you,” he said. “Whatever you pick, whatever choice you make, it doesn’t matter.”

Sam swallowed hard.

“Gabriel,” he said.

His brother’s face shimmered away. In his place Gabriel smirked at him. Sam remembered the last time they’d been face to face – when they’d left him in the warehouse, soaked to the skin, looking as if he’d been broken apart. He seemed to have put himself back together since then. Or maybe he’d just put his mask back on.

“Is this just a dream? Or are you real?”

“Oh, I’m real, all right,” said Gabriel. In the dark his eyes were the colour of old wine. Sam’s skin prickled as if there was a charge in the air. “You and me, Sam, we need to talk.”

“Have you changed your mind about helping us?” The answer was in his face. “Then there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Sorry, kiddo,” said Gabriel, “you’re not the one calling the shots here.” He snapped his fingers. Sam stared around him. They were standing in a snow-covered field under a sky of velvet black cloud, the smooth crust unbroken by footprints. It was deathly cold. He rubbed at his arms. “Welcome to northern Siberia,” said Gabriel. “Not my favourite vacation spot, personally.” He gave Sam another vicious smile. “You thought I was dangerous out there? Imagine what I can do inside your head.”

“So – what?” Already he was shivering so badly he could barely get the words out. _It isn’t real,_ he told himself, _it’s just another trick._ It didn’t do any good. “You’re gonna torture me in – in my dreams – till I say yes?”

“Pretty quick on the uptake,” said Gabriel. 

He shuddered. Every breath felt like inhaling a lungful of needles. His eyes were gummy: after a second, he realised the moisture on their surface was starting to freeze. He blinked painfully.

“We – we – let you go,” he said. “You –”

“What?” snapped Gabriel. “I owe you one? Is that what you were going to say?” His face twisted with fury. “You’re the one who started all this in the first place.”

“You – you think I don’t – don’t know that?” said Sam. “I can’t take it back. All I can do now is – is refuse to say yes.” His voice shook. “You can – can torture me – all you want. I won’t do it. There’s nothing – nothing you can do.”

“You’re joking,” said Gabriel. “I pushed you over the edge once already. Take Dean away, and you’re out there making Frank Castle look like the leader of a Boy Scout troop. Remember?”

Sam flinched, knowing what was going to happen even before Gabriel snapped his fingers. His brother’s corpse lay on the snow in front of him. The eyes were charred holes; there was dried blood crusted around his nostrils and the corners of his mouth. _It isn’t real. It_ isn’t _._

“You can’t do – do anything to Dean,” he forced out. “Michael needs him –”

“Needs him in the real world, Einstein. Newsflash: we’re inside your head. I can kill Dean in front of you a thousand times if I want.” A low, horrible noise cut through the night, a noise that chilled Sam to the bone. Gabriel stepped back and spread his arms as if he was addressing an imaginary crowd. “That’s right, folks: coming to you out of –” he glanced around – “uh, a field in northern Russia, it’s your favourite station, playing the greatest hits of the decade all night long. First up, that time Big Bro was devoured alive by hellhounds.”

“Cut – cut the crap,” stammered Sam, blinking the ice from his eyes. The howling was getting louder. “It won’t work.” But he wasn’t in the field any longer, he was in the office of the Fremont house, and Dean – his face drained of blood, his eyes wide – was lying pinned to the floor, struggling helplessly, while the hound’s claws sank deep and ripped – 

– and then the blackness of the sky bore down on him again. His jeans were soaking. He’d fallen to his knees in the snow. Gabriel looked down him, his face set in cruel lines. A vengeful god. “Ready to go again?” he said.

_Twice now I’ve watched you die. And I can’t – I won’t do it again, okay?_

He shoved the memory down. “It won’t work,” he repeated. “There’s nothing – nothing I won’t suffer – to keep the world from ending. You can keep – keep me here – a thousand years – you can torture me till I’m insane – but you can’t – can’t make me say yes.”

“Oh, can’t I,” said Gabriel, and grabbed hold of Sam’s shirt. “You think I put you through hell before? You have no idea what I can do to you. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging to say yes. You – you –” He broke off. “You deserve it,” he said, in a voice like thunder. The wrath of angels, Sam thought dazedly. “You broke the seal. You let Lucifer out.” His face was inhuman. “ _This is all your fault_ ,” he snarled, and Sam, shuddering, braced himself –

“Let him go, Gabriel,” said a soft voice – and Gabriel pulled away as if he’d been scalded. Warmth settled over Sam like an electric blanket.

For a moment he felt pathetically grateful – the primal instinct of an animal saved from danger. Then sick dread took hold of him. The biting cold was gone. But he shivered all the same.

“Little brother,” said Lucifer, coming around to put himself between Sam and Gabriel. “What are you doing prowling around in here?”

“Lucy,” said Gabriel. “Have to say, I wasn’t really angling for a family reunion.”

Sam had seen Gabriel full of sadistic satisfaction, bitter and broken-hearted, and half-hysterical with rage. He’d never, to this point, seen Gabriel look genuinely afraid. “You walk inside my vessel’s dreams,” said Lucifer, “and you don’t expect me to turn up?”

“Territorial, much?” said Gabriel.

“Sam prefers to keep his thoughts private,” said Lucifer. “I think we should respect that, don’t you? For now.”

Sam had just a second to catch the look of terror on Gabriel’s face before Lucifer made a sudden, violent gesture. A scream rang out across the snow. It was like watching through layers of mist or smoked glass. He had a blurred impression of claws – poised to strike, to rip and tear – and of wings, beating helplessly – and a strange mental sensation, as if he were inside Gabriel’s head, feeling pain and fear and bitter guilt that weren’t his own. 

Then it all vanished as if a radio had been shut off. Gabriel was gone.

Sam’s head reeled. “You didn’t have to – to hurt him like that,” he said, when he was capable of speaking.

“He’ll be fine,” said Lucifer. “He had to be taught a lesson.”

“You should have left him. He wants me to say yes.”

“I don’t need my little brother to walk in your dreams for you to say yes to me,” said Lucifer.

Sam shuddered.

“It’s never going to happen,” he said. His voice sounded small and feeble.

Lucifer gave a tender smile. He reached out his hand and touched Sam’s cheek, fondly. “Go to sleep, Sam,” he said. “No more trespassers tonight. I’ll make sure you dream of something good.”

Four hours later, just before they crossed into North Dakota, Sam woke up and had barely enough time to yell at Dean to pull over before he stumbled out and threw up on the side of the road.

* * *

Later, after they’d left Gabriel to die at the Elysian Fields Hotel, after he’d gone back and seen the ashy wings burnt into the floor, Sam mourned – whether for Gabriel himself, or just for the loss of their last, best hope, he couldn’t have said. He found a bar in the one-horse town where they’d stopped and drank himself half-sick on cheap whisky and stumbled back to the motel room to sink into dreamless sleep, still with his shoes on.


	2. Chapter 2

The demon possessing the cashier at the Gas-n-Sip in El Dorado, Arkansas, didn’t know anything about his brother. She’d claimed as much from the start, as soon as she realised why he’d brought her back to his motel room, but it was a good three hours before Sam believed her.

Once she was dead, Sam went into the bathroom and scrubbed the blood off his hands – clumsily, because of the sling – and splashed iodine over the wound on his left wrist, where the demon’s teeth had broken the skin. He’d put cuffs on her, but she’d fought like hell all the same – once it dawned on her that he didn’t plan on letting her go. He ran his good hand through his hair and blotted his face with a damp towel and looked over the guy in the mirror, still dressed in his Fed threads. He didn’t look especially friendly, or especially healthy for that matter. But you wouldn’t run away from him if you saw him on the street, and that was going to have to be good enough for now.

He left the body on the bed, wrapped up in the quilt. Let the police deal with it. The girl whose body had been hijacked was already dead: he’d known as soon as he pulled back the demon’s hair and saw the ugly wound on the back of the skull. Another hunter, maybe. Or a squabble with another demon, or a bar fight. Demons didn’t usually take good care of their vessels. Even knowing the vessel was dead, once upon a time he’d have felt more than a pang of guilt over what he’d done. But that was then, and this was now, and he was still nowhere nearer to finding his brother than he’d been a month ago. Disappointment lay heavy in his guts.

 _You don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself. Keep your mind on the job._ Dad’s words, from years ago, when he’d been kicking up a fuss about moving again. He packed up his gear, working mostly on autopilot, wincing when his busted shoulder protested. Once his phone rang – Cas, of course – and he let it go to voicemail, excusing himself with the thought that he didn’t have time to talk if he was going to get on the road by eight-thirty. The truth was, he felt prickly, ready to snap at anything, and he didn’t want to say something he’d regret later on.

Sudden nerviness came over him as he left – the fear that somebody would catch sight of him and remember the girl he’d brought back with him earlier in the day. But the only person who stopped him was a little boy in swimming trunks who asked him whiningly for a dollar for the vending machine.

The day was mercilessly hot. There was no sign of the sun, smothered under a layer of greyish clouds that remained stubbornly empty of rain. There was an old joke about that, wasn’t there? From the Depression. _Empties coming back_. He thought of his brother, of the demon who hadn’t known anything after all, of Cas, doing – well, God only knew what Cas was doing right now. Trying to be helpful, Sam supposed, and felt ashamed and irritated at once.

The sky was darkening when he pulled into the next town. It hadn’t helped the heat any. The one motel in town promised A/C, but when he stepped inside a wave of warm, stagnant air hit him. “A/C’s broke,” said the girl at the desk, smacking her gum. “You want a room, or what?”

The room was dingy and reeked of smoke. There was a ring of scum in the bathtub and a mummified dead cockroach on the dresser. Sam changed out of his suit and took a Tylenol for his arm and stretched himself out on the bed, staring up at the popcorn ceiling stained yellow with years of accumulated grime. Another dead end. _Empties coming back_. The past weeks had been one empty after another. What frustrated him most, at the same time as it spurred him on, was knowing that somewhere, out there, was the start of the thread that would lead him back to his brother. If only he knew where to start looking.

He hadn’t known what to expect when he’d come to El Dorado. A few weeks back, he’d noticed reports of an unusually high number of electrical storms in Union County – not by itself conclusive of anything, but worth investigating all the same. But there hadn’t been time to look into it then: he was heading up to Lake City, chasing a rumour of cattle deaths. Then the Colorado lead turned out to be a bust, and a week ago he’d seen a grainy cellphone photo of a girl with black eyes on one of the local conspiracy blogs, and thought: _One of Crowley’s people?_ Looking for Dean, maybe, just like he was. 

But she’d claimed she wasn’t working for Crowley. She’d been in El Dorado for months – and later he’d seen, glancing back over the weather reports when he stopped for supper at a McDonald’s, that the weird storms dated back to April. _Stupid._ He wouldn’t have missed that if he’d been thinking clearly. Most pertinently, she’d had no idea Dean was even missing. He wondered who she _had_ been working for, and whether Crowley would be interested. Whether, possibly, the presence of a demon who wasn’t one of his own people, who’d apparently settled into El Dorado to the extent of renting an apartment – they’d swung by to pick up her swimsuit after he mentioned the pool at his motel – was information that he’d consider valuable, and if so, what he’d offer in return.

Of course, it didn’t really matter. Crowley wasn’t answering his calls. Sam sighed and switched on the news. It was better than the noise inside his own head.

He didn’t plan on falling asleep. But one minute he was staring at the grimy ceiling, and the next he was – somewhere else.

It was a flying dream, like he’d sometimes had as a kid. But none of his dreams as a kid had ever been this vivid. He was soaring over a strange, wild landscape of high snow-powdered fjords and water that shone like blue glass in the sun. The air was divinely cold. He rose and dove and skimmed. Silver-brown fish – startled by his shadow – darted away.

The sun was higher by the time the long, thin black shape appeared on the water ahead of him. As he drew closer it resolved itself into a slender, canoe-like boat. It was being rowed by a woman dressed in what looked like sheepskins. She gaped up at him in amazement.

A strange sort of feeling had come over Sam. It reminded him of visiting museums on school field trips: the feeling of being in the presence of something impossibly fragile, something that could shatter in a second at a careless touch. He opened his mouth to speak to her – 

And woke up. The dingy room was stuffier than ever. A moth had got in somehow, and was bashing itself uselessly against the glass of the half-open window. Sam got up and let it out.

_What the hell was that?_

Just a dream. He got up carefully: he’d rolled over partway in the night, and his arm was burning – a fierce unignorable pain that ran from the shoulder nearly to the elbow. He thought wistfully of the Tylenol in his bag, but he didn’t trust himself to drive after taking anything with codeine in it. Just have to manage without. At least it was only a day’s drive back to Kansas.

He showered and shaved, picked up his duffle, and slammed the door behind him.

That was the first time.

* * *

The second time was three days later. He was back at the Bunker by then, not sleeping much, and not eating much either: he had a lead on another sighting of a woman with black eyes. He’d looked at the photo, a pretty girl with long auburn curls, and wondered. Two demons in the same county wasn’t impossible, but it wasn’t normal, either. _Some kind of splinter group, maybe? Broke with Crowley and now they’re trying to set up on their own?_ But never mind the whys and hows. Even if the first demon hadn’t known anything, this one might.

Sheer exhaustion had forced him to bed, resentfully, for a few hours. He was making a mental list of things to do: call Crowley again; pack his bag; review his notes; call Cas –

And then he was somewhere else. Not the Scandinavian wilderness, but somewhere new: a huge, glittering room, crowded with men in tuxedos and women in slinky, shimmering gowns – the sort of gowns Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly used to wear in old movies. Crystal chandeliers sparkled overhead. “Darling,” said somebody, turning away from a table, “aren’t you going to give me a kiss for good luck?”

She was tall and slender, a Hitchcockian blonde in blue silk. He couldn’t see any reason not to: he pulled her to him and kissed her, licking at her mouth, tasting champagne and cigarette smoke. “Feeling lucky now?”

“ _Very_ lucky,” she said, and smiled at him, dangerously. 

In the morning, he woke up in his empty bed, in his darkened room, and rubbed at his eyes. Another dream. Put together, no doubt, out of fragments of movies he’d watched however many years ago. But the casino had felt _real_ , a part of his brain argued, and so, for that matter, had the blonde.

* * *

After the third time, a strange, joyful dream of a hot, smoky little kitchen that smelled of fish and frying things, packed full of people dancing to the music of an accordion and fiddle, he picked up his phone.

“I don’t know,” said Cas, and had to break off to cough. Sam waited, trying to be patient, for him to finish. “They might just be dreams. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” A hesitation. “That’s a figure of speech,” Cas informed him.

“I know, Cas,” said Sam. He’d been horrified when Cas told him about Metatron’s “download” – fresh off his possession by Gadreel, he couldn’t imagine feeling anything but violated by someone drilling into your brain like that – but Cas seemed to enjoy showing off his new knowledge of pop culture. Maybe it was different for angels. “The thing is, these don’t feel like ordinary dreams, you know? It’s like I’m – well, remembering things. Somebody else’s memories. Feeling what they’re feeling.”

“You think you’re connecting with someone psychically?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” It wasn’t a happy thought. “Just what we need,” said Sam. “One more problem.”

“Well, that seems to be how our luck generally goes,” said Cas, and broke off coughing again. “Sam, if you want me to come back to the Bunker –”

“Cas, we talked about this –”

“I could examine you. See if –”

Cough, cough, cough. Wet-sounding. Deep. This time Sam interrupted. “You know what, it’s probably nothing,” he said. “Something to do with Gadreel, maybe.”

“Gadreel was never on Earth at the relevant times,” rasped Cas. “And that wouldn’t –”

“Either way,” said Sam, shortly. “It’s not hurting anything. And right now, it’s not our biggest problem.”

“Someone may be in your _head_. You don’t think that’s a big enough problem?”

“Not if it means you –” _dying faster,_ Sam didn’t say – “wearing yourself out trying to fix me. You need to worry about finding your grace. Which reminds me: how’s that going?”

Cas hesitated.

“It goes,” he said. “As they say. Sam, if anything changes, if _anything_ starts to feel wrong about – about whatever this is, _promise_ you’ll call me. I’ll come. Wherever I am, I’ll come. You know that.”

“I know. But it won’t –”

“Promise me, Sam.”

Sam bit his lip.

“I promise,” he lied.

* * *

He made his way through Arkansas, ferreting out a werewolf – who didn’t know anything about demons and didn’t want to – outside of Pine Bluff; interrogating a couple of hunters – both of them in their early twenties, but looking younger than he and Dean ever had, he was sure – in Monticello. No sign of the girl with black eyes. Maybe she’d moved on, or maybe she’d never existed at all. In Little Rock he got himself thrown out of a bar for staring too long at a girl with auburn hair; in a Podunk town along I-555 he stupidly pulled a knife on a vampire in the middle of a laundromat and spent a day in custody before one of the hunters he’d met in Monticello turned up to pretend to be his lawyer. He took her out for a beer afterwards by way of thanks, but he wasn’t in the mood for company, and she was too jittery from having to bullshit the cops to talk much. More dead ends. He left another message on Crowley’s phone. He doubled back, heading west again. Near Fort Smith he spent a day dealing with a haunted house that had put four people in hospital – trying and failing all the while not to resent the time it was taking away from his search.

He dreamt of a barge with purple sails, of a silver desert under a sky full of stars that blazed like white fire: _the Moon,_ he thought giddily, _I’m on the Moon,_ of a crowd of people all laughing and shouting and throwing coloured powders at each other. At first the dreams had come every few days. Now he was dreaming almost every night. Part of him, the part that still shuddered at the memory of Gadreel, felt sick when he thought about it too long. Maybe the dreams weren’t hurting anything, but _something_ had still sunk its hooks into his brain. And it hadn’t bothered to ask permission, either. But –

Whatever they meant, wherever they were coming from, the dreams were at least a respite from what his waking life had turned into. He kept a careful log, and made sure he wasn’t missing time. A few times he set up his phone camera to record him while he slept, just in case. But he never saw himself move from the bed.

A few weeks into his hunt, he crossed paths unexpectedly with Jillian Brent, a forty-something Afghanistan vet based out of Manitoba. She’d worked a few cases with him and Dean back in the day, when they happened to be close to the border. This time she was tracking a shifter – following a trail of bodies that stretched from Flin Flon to Texarkana. She offered to buy him dinner, which he couldn’t think of an excuse for turning down. You had to maintain your connections. Plenty of hunters liked to think of themselves as lone wolves, but the truth was, if you didn’t have anybody to call – for research, for backup – you weren’t going to last long.

It took her till they got to the restaurant to bring up Dean. “So where’s that brother of yours?” she said, gulping her beer while they waited for their pizzas. “Kinda thought you two were joined at the hip.”

“Dean’s, uh – Dean’s in some trouble right now,” he said.

“Sorry to hear it,” said Jillian, neutrally. Which was about all she could say: the life they lived, “trouble” could mean anything from recovering in hospital to being locked up after a three-day bender.

“He’s been missing for a while. It’s – the whole situation’s kind of a clusterfuck. But I’m gonna get him back,” said Sam. “Whatever it takes. I’m gonna get him back. And I’m gonna make sure the bastard who got him into this mess pays for it.”

Jillian fiddled with her napkin.

“If anyone can do it, you’re the guy,” she said, at last.

She didn’t ask him to help with the shifter hunt, which was what he’d thought the dinner invite was maybe leading up to, or to come back to her motel, which was the other possibility. When they parted ways outside the restaurant she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

He pulled into the parking lot of the King Arthur Motel – a relic of the early ’60s, with faux stone battlements – a little after dark. The sky was full of low, bruise-coloured clouds. Another omen, or just a summer storm? He lay on his back in a room that stank of mould and old sex, and found himself almost hoping he’d dream. He wanted to be somewhere else – anywhere except inside of his own skin. He shut his eyes, trying to remember the fjords, the silver water, and –

_Please, I told you, I don’t know anything! Please don’t, please don’t –!_

He started up, shuddering. It was the voice of the demon he’d killed in El Dorado. He remembered it as clearly as if his brain were an LP into which someone had pressed her last words.

The worst thing was, while he’d been cutting into her, he’d felt better than he had in weeks. Everything – Dean, Crowley, Cas’s fading grace – fell away when the blade was in his hand. Someone was in pain, and for once it wasn’t him.

He got up and went out and let his feet lead him to the liquor store across the street. The night sky was a dull orangey-black, clouds reflecting the glow of the streetlamps. Back in the motel room, he poured a shot of whiskey, and forced it down, and then another. After a minute or two he felt steadier. He swallowed one of the Tylenol pills and chased it with a third shot. A pleasant sort of numbness, like a wrapping of cotton wool, began to enfold him.

When he finally slipped into sleep, he wasn’t on the Moon, or in Scandinavia, or swanning around Monte Carlo. He was walking down the steps of Crawford Hall.

He hadn’t thought about Gabriel in a long time. The guilt over his death had never really eased, but it’d been buried under newer, fresher hurts. Now he found himself thinking of their last meeting at the Mystery Spot. _You break my heart, kid._ He wondered what Gabriel would have thought of him now.

But the thought didn’t linger. Another feeling had come over him: a feeling like champagne bubbles. Anticipation. And excitement.

He woke up in the dark. The power must have gone out: the digital clock on the bedside table was blank. He got up and pulled on his clothes, playing the dream over in his head.

* * *

“I tried summoning him,” said Cas. “After my encounter with Metatron. It didn’t work.”

“But if he was held somewhere, maybe –”

“Gabriel is _dead_ , Sam,” said Cas. He sounded worse: hoarse, like a pack-a-day smoker. “I tried everything I could think of. It was just another of Metatron’s lies.” Sam held the phone away from his ear while Cas coughed wetly. “Sam, I think I should come back to the Bunker. Whatever they are, these dreams – they aren’t normal.”

_And what are you going to do? Kill yourself trying to find out what’s wrong with me?_

“Where are you?” said Sam, instead.

“Santa Clara,” said Cas. “Hannah informed me that Metatron confessed to storing certain artifacts in the library here. It’s probably a dead end,” he added, quickly. “Metatron lies about everything. Frankly, I think he enjoys torturing me.”

“It’s still a lead,” said Sam. Cas said nothing. “You should check it out,” said Sam. “I’ll be fine. I’ll call you in a couple of days, okay?”

* * *

As it turned out, between bailing out Jillian when the shifter trapped her in the latest victim’s apartment with a shattered left ankle – lucky for her she’d still had her phone, and the presence of mind to text him for help – and chasing down a lead on the auburn-haired girl, which turned out to be just a nuttier-than-usual conspiracy blogger regurgitating what he’d found on the Internet, he didn’t get in touch with Cas again for nearly a week. He had one strange, vivid dream of standing on a balcony somewhere, watching fireworks explode in the night sky, but that was all. He was starting to agree that hoping Gabriel might still be alive was just wishful thinking: Lucifer didn’t show mercy, and even if he had, there was nothing on Earth – or in Heaven or Hell, for that matter – that could keep Gabriel prisoner.

In the meantime, he wondered if it wasn’t time to give up on Arkansas. He didn’t know what the demon had been doing in El Dorado. Scoping out a potential deal, maybe. In any case, she’d been a dead end. He assumed the second demon had been sent to investigate her death – Crowley wasn’t the kind to ignore one of his people turning up in a motel room cut to ribbons – but either she’d gone back to Hell, or she was lying low.

Accordingly: regroup. Come up with another plan of attack. Try summoning a crossroads demon – if Crowley would let any of them come to him. Or a witch, maybe, if he could find one willing to craft a tracking spell for Dean –

Come Saturday night, after finally talking to Cas – no surprise, Metatron had been lying after all: Hannah had insinuated that he was going to be punished for it, but that was cold comfort to Cas, though he was putting on a brave face – he lay awake for a long time, thinking it over, once or twice getting up to pace around the room. Not like he had much chance of sleeping, anyway, with the kids in the room next door screaming at each other at top volume. Finally, around half past one – half an hour or so after the kids had finally knocked it off – his book slipped from his fingers. 

This time he knew right away where he was. Standing outside a window, looking in on flamingo-patterned wallpaper. The Mystery Spot. He watched himself get up out of bed and pull his brother into a hug. Pity burst in his heart, and regret, and beneath it all a grudging sort of affection and a sense of having done the right thing. It wasn’t, after all, a bad sort of feeling.

_You break my heart, kid._

He woke up with his mind clearer than it had been in weeks.

* * *

It didn’t take him long to shoot Cas an email, and Cas, whatever reservations he might still have, got back to him within the hour. After Metatron’s trick earlier in the year he’d put together a summoning ritual. Not a purely angelic one, he explained in his email, nor a purely pagan one, but something in between. Something that would command both parts of Gabriel’s dual nature. _No guarantees,_ he signed off. _Summoning spells are difficult magic._ Sam ignored that and read over the scanned page of Cas’s blocky handwriting. Frankincense. Blood and beer. Moonlight.

He checked the time. 5:16 AM. Not long before sunrise.

Maybe Gabriel was trapped somewhere, maybe he was injured somehow, too weak to fly or even to get on angel radio, but he was _alive:_ he had to be. And he was trying to communicate. Sam uncapped the Sharpie from his bag and began scrawling the first series of Enochian letters on the carpet. He debated laying down a circle of holy oil – but only for a second or two. Gabriel had come over to their side in the end, and Sam wasn’t going to repay him by taking him prisoner. Carefully, his left hand shaking a little, he pricked his right index finger, and daubed the carpet and the walls with blood. Then he cracked open the beer – the last can left in the minifridge – and drank deeply. In the old days it would have been mead, but beer was good enough, Cas had written, in a pinch.

“I invoke thee,” he said aloud in Enochian, “I bind thee –”

For nearly ten minutes nothing happened. _Maybe he’s somewhere even a summoning can’t reach,_ Sam thought, despairingly, _or maybe –_

_Bang!_

_What the hell?_ He got to his feet. Another _bang_ shook the door. Hope flared up. Just like Gabriel, he thought, to make a dramatic entrance.

The woman standing on the doorstep was tall and thin, with spiky dark hair. Under her leather jacket she had on a faded Garfield t-shirt. _I hate Mondays!_

“Gabriel?” he said, cautiously. A new vessel?

“Who the hell’s Gabriel?” she snapped. Before he could react, she’d shouldered her way past him into the motel room. His hand went to the angel blade at his belt. She stopped short, staring at the circle and symbols Sharpied on the carpet. “What are you trying to summon, Cthulhu?”

“What do you want?” Sam demanded. “Who are you?”

“I’m here about Selena,” she said. Sam looked blankly at her. _Wrong room?_ Then with horror he remembered. Selena was the name of the demon he’d killed in El Dorado. “You remember her? About yea high,” holding out a hand, “blonde hair, brown eyes, throat slashed open?”

_Oh, no. No, God, I don’t want to have to explain what happened to her –_

But when did it ever matter what he wanted?

“Listen,” Sam began, “it’s not what you think. Selena was –”

“Selena was my friend. I don’t give a shit what you have to say.”

“She was possessed by a demon,” said Sam. 

“She was working at a fucking _gas station_ ,” said the woman, and her eyes turned black. Sam stood still, frozen with shock. “You don’t get it, do you? She hated all the bullshit. Heaven, Hell, Abaddon, Crowley, all of it. She wouldn’t even possess a living person. Her vessel was some moron who cracked her head open falling down the stairs. She just wanted to be left alone and go to the movies on Friday nights. And you tortured her to death and left her to rot in that motel room.”

She flung out her hand. Something, an invisible force, slammed into him – a hard push that sent him sprawling. A throbbing pain erupted in his left knee. He’d bashed it against the corner of the bedframe.

“Too bad for you,” said the demon, “I’m not like Selena. I’m gonna hurt you a hell of a lot, and I’m gonna enjoy it, and then I’m gonna kill you. Maybe I’ll cut _your_ throat. Kinda poetic.”

He was on his feet again. His knee throbbed. _Never mind._ He lunged at her, fumbling for the angel blade. _Stupid, clumsy –_

But it was enough to distract her. A trained fighter would have thrown him across the room again, but the demon flinched back instinctively and put up her hands, trying to ward him off. A salesperson, he thought, or middle management – not a soldier. He dove at her and got the blade at her jugular, just below the chin. She might be able to throw him off, but not before he opened her throat up. “Try that again,” he snarled, “and you won’t like what happens next.”

“She’s still alive in here,” the demon spat at him. “You start cutting me up, I’ll make sure she feels _every_ little thing you’re doing.”

“You’re lying.”

“All right, fine,” she said. “God, you aren’t even any fun to screw with. She’s dead. I killed her dog first. Then the stupid bitch wouldn’t stop whining at me, so I killed her, too.”

Sam pressed his lips together. She was trying to provoke him: hoping he’d snap and kill her, spare her whatever else he had in store. Considering the state in which he’d left Selena, he couldn’t really blame her. “I won’t kill you,” he said. “Not as long as you cooperate. Why are you in Arkansas? Are you working for Crowley?” 

Her throat moved under the blade. Then she gave in.

“Not right now,” she said. He nodded: _keep going._ “Selena and I used to talk, I don’t know, once or twice a week. When I didn’t hear from her, I got worried. Went to check on her. And then I read in the paper about – about what the police found in that motel room. I talked them into letting me see her. They wanted me to identify the body.” Her gaze slid away. “She’d been killed with an angel blade,” she said. “But there was human blood on the bed. Not a lot of hunters carry angel blades. I figured it had to be the Winchesters. Or just the one Winchester.” In spite of himself Sam was almost impressed. It was good detective work. “I told the King, the same day I found her,” she went on, her voice hardening, “and you know what he did?”

“What?”

“He ordered me not to interfere,” she said. “Said if you wanted to play Jack the Ripper, it was your business, and anybody stupid enough to get caught deserved what they got.” She ground out the words. “Maybe she wasn’t one of his people, but she was still one of us,” she said. “And he didn’t give a fuck about her. I decided if he wasn’t going to deal with you, I would. So I changed meatsuits in case the police were looking for me, and I started tracking you.”

“You wanted revenge.”

“I can see you’re the smart one in the family. I wanted you to die screaming.”

If he let himself think about what she was telling him, really think about it, he was going to crack. Go crazy, maybe. Or let her do what she wanted – take whatever revenge she wanted.

Instead he said, “I’m looking for my brother. Dean Winchester. He’s been missing since the start of the summer. Do you know anything?”

She hesitated. Then – maybe it was the knife at her throat, or maybe she just hated Crowley that much – she said, “Last I heard, he was with the King.”

“ _Crowley_?” said Sam.

“That’s right. Being a psycho must run in the family. He’s got a pair of these, too.” She let her eyes flicker black again.

“You mean he’s possessed?”

_Crowley, you son of a bitch. This is sick even for you._

“I mean he’s a demon. Something turned him.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Okay, you’re right, I’m just making it up because I have an incredibly vivid imagination. You’ve got the King on speed dial, don’t you? You don’t believe me, call him. Find out for yourself.”

His mind threw up a brick wall against the possibility. _It can’t be, it just can’t._ But – hadn’t he wondered why Crowley was refusing to pick up the phone? Hadn’t he suspected there was something wrong with the First Blade, some darker magic than any of them could imagine?

“I’m not going to call him,” he said. “You are. Get one of those mugs from the table.”

She protested, “He won’t answer. I fell out of favour when I started chasing you.”

But it was the best chance he had. He cut her arm herself – carefully, in case she tried breaking free, but she didn’t move an inch.

_No, please! Please –!_

But the demon didn’t scream, or even cry. She gritted her teeth while the blood dripped into a coffee mug stamped with the Blue Parrot Motel logo. For about three minutes – he watched the numbers move on his phone – they stood together, perversely close, his knife at her throat. The blood rippled and shimmered. But there was no answer.

“I told you,” she said at last. “Happy now?”

_Crowley, when I catch up to you –_

“One more thing,” he said.

“Take your time, Columbo. Not like I’ve got anything else to do.”

“I’m looking for somebody else, too,” he said. “Gabriel. The archangel.”

“ _That_ Gabriel?” said the demon. Her eyes darted to the circle on the carpet. “You’re trying to summon _Gabriel_?” She laughed. “Gabriel’s dead,” she said. “Everyone knows that. Lucifer killed him years ago. Anything else you want to ask?”

Sam shook his head. When he spoke the words felt strangely heavy in his mouth. “If I let you go,” he said, “are you going to come after me again?”

She stared at him.

“You’re joking,” she said. “You and I both know you aren’t gonna do that.”

“You want to live, don’t you? And I don’t want to kill you.” Maybe he should have – God knew she probably deserved it: nobody worked for Crowley without getting their hands dirty – but Selena’s corpse, mutilated and bloody, was floating in front of his eyes. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

“You just didn’t give a shit,” said the demon. “But sure. You let me go, I’m not stupid enough to come back begging for more.” He stepped back, lowering the knife, and she slumped against the wall. “She was the only friend I had,” she said, hollowly.

“I’m sorry,” said Sam again, uselessly. “And I – I don’t blame you. For wanting revenge. The times I’ve lost my brother –”

The demon gave him a horrible smile.

“Sure,” she said. “You and me, we’re two of a kind.”

After she’d gone, he sat down again by the summoning circle. The sun rose and poured through the filmy window and made a square of greasy yellow light on the carpet. The hours ticked by.

* * *

He fell asleep for an hour or two, leaning against the wall, and woke up with a vague memory of white sand and water reflecting a pink-and-gold sunset. The summoning circle was still empty.

 _You’re dead,_ he thought. _Stay out of my head._

He called Crowley’s phone again, to no avail, and after that he bit the bullet and made himself call Cas and break the news about Dean. Which didn’t go any better than he’d expected. Cas sounded as if somebody had ripped his heart out of his chest, and then, midway through promising to try calling Crowley himself, to make sure, he broke off into a coughing fit that made Sam’s guts clench. “Cas,” he began, afterwards, “maybe it’s time you thought about – about –”

“About _what_?”

“About cutting out your grace.” He forced the words out. “I know it’d mean being human again, but – it’s better than the alternative.”

Cas said, “I’m no good to anyone if I’m human. I think we both know that by now. No, Sam,” cutting him off. “If Dean has truly become a demon – you’re going to want an angel on your side.”

The hell of it was, he was right. But it didn’t stop Sam from protesting. “And what happens when you run out of time?” he said.

“Then I’ll have been useful for as long as I can,” said Cas. 

* * *

He was drinking alone in a dive in a little town in east Texas a few days later when it happened. The place was called the Ace Saloon, and it was filthy – the floor sticky, the windows smeared, the surface of the bar stained and scuffed and scratched. But there was nothing wrong with the booze, and right now all he wanted was to be drunk, and not think about his brother, or Cas, or Gabriel, or anyone else.

_Stop, please! Please! Why are you doing this?_

Selena again. He downed the rest of his drink.

 _Shut up._ Shoving his knife under the nail of her remaining index finger. _Where’s my brother?_

Tears running down her stolen face. _I don’t know, I don’t know! Please –!_

He’d dulled his wits enough that it took him a second or two to react when somebody slid into the seat next to him. He was in his mid-forties, maybe, dressed in a spotless white three-piece suit, with longish hair and a beard that made him look a little bit like a younger Colonel Sanders – except for the ugly scars on his cheek. He smiled at Sam, not pleasantly.

“Do I know you?” said Sam.

“Not yet,” said the stranger. _Christ, he even sounds like Colonel Sanders._ “But you will, Samuel.”

Automatically his hand found the hilt of the angel blade. “How do you know my name?”

The stranger leant against the bar. Then Sam recoiled in surprise. His eyes had flickered yellow. Only for a second – but it was long enough.

“Oh, I know all about you, son,” the stranger said. “Heard through the grapevine you’ve been looking for a friend of mine. You know the old saying, boy. ‘Loose lips sink ships.’ And your ship, boy, well – she’s foundering. I heard tell from one of my people that an acquaintance of his had an encounter with you. Said you were trying to summon the Archangel Gabriel. Now, I don’t believe in relying on hearsay evidence, so I went to speak with her myself.”

The metal of the blade was cold against his fingers. _Not yet, not yet._ Not till he knew how many allies the demon might have brought along with him. Every muscle in his body was tensed. 

“You’ll be gratified to know,” said the demon, “I disposed of her. But before she shuffled off this mortal coil, she confirmed you were searching for Gabriel.”

“Gabriel’s dead,” said Sam.

“Is that what you think?” The two guys who’d been drinking at the end of the bar were on their feet, eyes glinting black. The stranger brought his face close to Sam’s, breathing the stench of sulphur and bourbon into Sam’s nostrils. “I’ll tell you something, boy,” he said. “You should have left well enough alone.”


	3. Chapter 3

“You’re a rather delicate specimen, compared to angels and demons,” said Asmodeus. “I can see I’m gonna have to be careful with you, boy. I want you to last a long time yet.”

Sam shivered. He was sitting on the bare wood floor of a small dining room. The table and all but one of the chairs had been pushed against the far wall. The two black-eyed demons had stripped him almost as soon as they’d got him through the front door. He told himself it was the oldest trick in the book – hard not to feel afraid when you’re naked – but it didn’t do much good. A faint, ugly memory of the Cage, of claws tracing over the bones of his shoulders and back, was lurking in his brain. There were goosepimples on the skin of his arms and legs. Without his sling he had to brace his bad arm on his right knee. 

They’d doped him with something outside the bar. He’d woken maybe half an hour before they’d brought him to the house and lain numb in the back of the truck, knowing something terrible was going to happen, or already happening, but incapable somehow of connecting it with himself. Only when they dragged him onto the porch did a switch flip in him – _Christ, this is it_ – and his thoughts seemed to move in fast-forward. _Cas. Cas, you there? Couple of demons jumped me –_

Asmodeus – he’d introduced himself formally, with a kind of stagey old-fashioned courtesy – was seated in the sole remaining chair, looking down on him.

“Truth is, boy: if you were anybody else, soon’s I was finished talking with you, I’d kill you and put your body out for the crows.” He paused, as if letting that sink in. “But I ain’t lived this long without learning to seize an opportunity that comes my way. Now it happens that a while back I heard tell of the new Knight of Hell tearing up the countryside with our old friend Crowley –”

“ _Knight of Hell_?” repeated Sam.

Asmodeus raised his eyebrows. Then he began to laugh. 

“You don’t know, do you?” he said. “Your brother’s got himself a set of black eyes. He’s Crowley’s lieutenant, you could say. The Lancelot to his Arthur.”

So it was worse than he’d thought. _A Knight of Hell –_

Asmodeus was still talking. “Now, Crowley and I – in the ordinary course of things, we don’t interfere with each other. Call it a gentlemen’s agreement. But I know Crowley. If he thinks he’s got an advantage, he’s gonna press it. He ain’t ever rested easy with the likes of me at large. And if he should choose to send his new knight after me –”

Now he understood. “You want a bargaining chip,” said Sam.

“That’s right, boy.” His eyes flashed yellow again. “And in the meantime – you’re gonna tell me why you were trying to summon the Archangel Gabriel.”

“Screw you.”

Asmodeus’s lips curved in a smile. Then he lunged forward and slapped Sam across the face. His hand might have been made of stone. Pain exploded in Sam’s cheek: for a second everything was grey. When he could think again, he wondered if Asmodeus had cracked his cheekbone.

“I’ll ask again, son. You ain’t just laying down summoning circles for the hell of it. Pardon the expression. Now tell me what you know about Gabriel.”

It took about fifteen minutes before Asmodeus’s patience ran out. By then he’d broken Sam’s nose, too, and wrenched the bad shoulder – not all the way out of its socket, but enough, Sam thought grimly, to undo most of the work the surgeon had done on his torn tendons – and broken the ring finger on his good hand. “I’ve been tortured by Lucifer himself,” Sam spat, after the finger. Sweat and tears ran down his face. “You think _this_ is going to break me?”

“Oh, I make no pretence to Lucifer’s greatness,” said Asmodeus. “I’m a mere disciple. But I’m a _very_ apt pupil. By the time I’m done with you,” the velvet voice dropping, “I _will_ break you. I will _own_ you, Samuel.”

He rapped on the door of the dining room. One of the flunkies from the bar, the one whose meatsuit was built like a rugby player, came into the room and hauled Sam to his feet. “See you tomorrow, then,” said Sam. He knew this trick, too. Let the prisoner stew by themselves for a while, till their mind starts working against them and all they can think about is what you’ve got planned. Keep them disoriented: never let them be sure a given session is really over. Call them back right after it’s ended, or let whole days go by without torturing them. Sometimes Lucifer had left Sam alone for months at a time. And sometimes –

Asmodeus shook his head.

“You think we’re through?” he said. “We ain’t through, boy. Not yet. Hold him,” he said to the demon, and raised his hand, fingers outstretched, and Sam had just a second to wonder –

_What’s he doing, what’s he need the demon for?_

And then he couldn’t think. Pain exploded in his throat and sinuses. His lungs were burning as if the air in them had turned to poison. He imagined himself coughing up blood. Stars burst in front of his eyes. It was worse, a hundred times worse, than the few times he’d been nearly strangled by something they were hunting. It was like being burnt alive from the inside out. The only thing that compared was what Zachariah had done to him all those years ago when they’d met in his dad’s storage unit.

Asmodeus let him choke for ten seconds or so. Then he lowered his hand.

“You think you can stand up to me?” he purred. “I’ve broken better men than you, son. Bring him,” he said to the demon. Sam tensed, meaning instinctively to resist, and Asmodeus made a warning gesture. “Don’t fuss. You went to all that trouble with your little summoning circle: now don’t you want to see him?”

Sam’s heart froze. 

_It’s not possible._

The demon dragged him out of the dining room. They were moving up a flight of narrow, creaking stairs, which led to a small landing. A door was opened: a light was switched on. His shoulder throbbed and pulsed and his broken finger seemed to radiate pain up the whole length of his arm. He was dizzy, his brain strangely disconnected from his body, as if he’d suffered an electric shock. The demon pushed him forward through the doorway.

The smell in the room – rotting meat, and old blood – made him gag. They were standing at one end of what had once been a small bedroom or study. It was about ten feet by eight feet. Later, reflecting back on his impressions, he realised that he’d been vaguely aware of several things: that there was no furniture in the room, not even a bed or a chair, only a grungy twin mattress lying on the floor; that the floor and walls were filthy with old stains; and that the single window was covered with a metal guard.

But just then his attention was seized by something else. In the farthest corner, dressed in dirty-looking rags, huddled against the wall, was a small, dirty figure. There was something wrong with its mouth, Sam thought distantly. It was the only coherent thought of which he was capable. Something was wrong.

“Samuel,” said Asmodeus, “allow me to present the Archangel Gabriel.”

* * *

Sometime later – fatigue and disorientation had muddled his sense of time – Sam lay on his back on the mattress. It was infested with bugs – he could feel them crawling on his bare skin – but he was in too much pain to care. Gabriel was motionless, his head bowed, his back to the wall. If Sam hadn’t known better, he’d have thought he was looking at a corpse.

But he’d seen Gabriel move. As soon as Asmodeus had taken three steps into the room, Gabriel’s head had jerked up – so suddenly Sam started – and he’d cringed away, staring, his eyes like two white marbles in a mask of dried blood.

_How did he end up here? Hell, how is he even_ alive? _I went back to the hotel. I saw his body – his wings – was it all just another trick?_ But then, hadn’t he been holding onto a secret, stupid hope all these years – that one of these days on a hunt they’d run into Bigfoot or Bugs Bunny or something, and at the end of the trail there’d be Gabriel, chomping on a Snickers bar, smirking at them for ever having thought he was really dead? God, or somebody, had brought Cas back time after time: who was to say he wouldn’t do the same for another rebel angel?

But what the hell had _happened_ to him? He’d seen what was wrong with Gabriel’s mouth now. It had been stitched shut. His lips were crusted with dried pus and blood. The sight of it made Sam’s guts twist. 

_What could possibly do that_ _to an archangel? What could make an archangel_ bleed _?_

He tried to make himself think practically. It was that or fall apart. The only other yellow-eyed demon he knew of was Azazel, and powerful as Azazel had been, Sam doubted he could have taken on an archangel. Ergo: either something had happened to Asmodeus – something that had boosted his power somehow – or something had happened to Gabriel. Had he been caught in the fall from Heaven? But he just didn’t look weakened, Sam thought, like the angels they’d run into last year. He looked almost human. Sam would’ve thought he’d fallen completely if it weren’t for the stitches in his mouth, which showed that if nothing else, he apparently still didn’t need to eat or drink.

And even the most powerful psychics couldn’t share dreams. Not like he’d done with Sam. Only an angel could do that.

After Asmodeus and his servant had gone, he’d moved closer to Gabriel – wincing at the pain from his injuries. Gabriel had taken one look at him and flinched away, shivering. “Gabriel,” said Sam, softly – the voice he used for speaking to kids on hunts, and people who’d just watched their loved ones die – “Gabriel, it’s me. Sam Winchester. Do you remember me?”

Gabriel made a faint, hurt sound. His eyes were fixed on Sam’s face.

_Expecting a blow. Or worse._

“It was you in my head, wasn’t it?” Sam went on. “Those dreams. We all thought you were dead. But you were trying to – to communicate with me. And now I’m here _._ I’m right in front of you. Gabriel, _please_ –”

He broke off. Gabriel didn’t give any sign that he’d heard him.

_Hey, Sam._ Lucifer’s voice. Soft as moonlight, cold as iron. _Back in a cage, huh?_

He dug his nails into his palm. Not a hallucination. More like intrusive thoughts. It had happened before. Stress brought it on, or lack of sleep. Think about something else. He made himself count down mentally from one hundred by sevens, twice over, breathing slowly in and out, and then he closed his eyes. “Cas,” he whispered, “Cas, if you’ve got your ears on, the demon who’s got me – his name’s Asmodeus. I still don’t know where I am.”

But God only knew if Cas could hear him. He peered at the bars on the window. Just an ordinary safety grille – the kind you could buy for fifty bucks at Home Depot. There must be some kind of warding up that he couldn’t see, he decided. A locked door and bars on the window couldn’t hold an archangel.

Not unless the archangel was halfway to fallen, anyway.

He glanced back at Gabriel. His eyes had a sort of blank wariness: the terror of a caged animal. Sam inched closer again. A tremor ran through Gabriel’s shoulders.

Sam said, “Gabriel, it’s okay, it’s me. It’s Sam –”

Gabriel shook. His bare feet drummed against the floor. _Something_ flared up – like an electric charge – and Sam recoiled. _Grace,_ he thought frantically, _it’s grace._ The combination of being in a cage again, trapped again, with the feel of angelic grace was too much to stand. He scrambled to the other side of the room. Gabriel gave him a dull, wary look.

_You know, Sam, I’ve gotta say: you’re really not handling this well. Just an observation. Guess I did a number on you, huh?_

“Shut up,” he snapped. “Just shut up.”

Another voice floated back to him out of memory. He’d been just a kid, and he and Dean and his dad had been meeting another hunter, whose name he’d forgotten – some mountain-man type with a Paul Bunyan beard. He’d had a dog with him. Sam, though he was under orders, like Dean, not to talk to the guy, reasoned with himself that Dad hadn’t said anything about the dog. He put out his hand to pet it – and jumped back in terror when it bared its teeth and growled.

_Look. He’s a real – well, he’s not a nice guy,_ John said later on, back in their motel room. _It’s why I didn’t want you two talking to him. And he’s not nice to his dog, either._ Sam looked up at him, uncomprehending. _He hits_ _it, Sam. If it doesn’t do what he wants. Or if he feels like it._

_But_ I _wasn’t gonna hurt it._

_I know, son. But the dog doesn’t. You beat a dog often enough and it’ll snap at anybody who comes near it._

He’d given up trying to talk to Gabriel after that.

At some point he fell into a doze. He was bone-weary, the sick kind of fatigue that only came from physical pain. He didn’t dream at all that he remembered. When he started awake sometime later – not more than a few hours, he thought, though it was hard to judge – Gabriel was still watching him. He hadn’t moved from the corner.

Something had woken him: a sound, maybe. He heard a faint creak. A door opening? Gabriel lifted his head slightly. _Please,_ Sam thought, _please. Give me a sign. Show me you’re still in there._ But Gabriel only pressed himself against the wall.

Then Sam heard the heavy sound of footfalls on the landing, and understood.

“You,” said the demon from the dining room. “Come here.” No use trying to disobey. Slowly, painfully, Sam dragged himself forward, till he was about halfway to the door. “Now sit,” the demon ordered, and Sam – reminding himself that there was no point in making trouble for himself, not when he was already injured – sat down with his back against the wall, trembling with pain.

“Thank you: that’ll be all for now,” said the velvet voice. Asmodeus came into the room. The demon nodded. A moment later the door closed behind him. “Upon reflection,” said Asmodeus, “I have some further questions.”

“I’ll bet.”

Asmodeus slapped him again.

“You’re an insolent puppy, aren’t you,” he said. “But we’ll cure that.”

And then he was raising his right hand, crooking his fingers, and anything else Sam might have said was forgotten in the explosion of pain in his lungs and throat.

He came back to himself lying on his left side, blinking painfully, gasping like a fish. While writhing around he’d bashed his shoulder somehow: the whole right half of his body was burning, from his clavicle to his hip.

“Now,” said Asmodeus. “Who else knows about Gabriel?”

He didn’t lift his head. “Nobody. I didn’t even know he was alive.”

“And what about your feathered friend, huh? Castiel. You didn’t drop a word in his ear?”

_Please! I don’t know anything about your brother!_

Just a memory. Not important. “I told you. I didn’t know.”

“Then _why_ ,” said Asmodeus, “were you trying to summon him?” The tips of his white shoes entered Sam’s gaze as he walked forward. “Way I see it, boy,” he said, “anything you know, that angel of yours knows, too. And anything _he_ knows, Heaven knows.”

It clicked. “You’re scared,” said Sam. “You think Heaven’s going to try to rescue him.”

“If the forces of Heaven try to steal what’s mine,” said Asmodeus, “on account of you having informed them – I’m gonna make you wish you were dead.” He was half-expecting the blow, but there was only so much you could do to brace yourself. The heel of Asmodeus’s shoe drove into his chest: he choked again, and found his mouth full of blood. He’d bitten his tongue. “Now let’s take it from the top,” said Asmodeus. “ _Why were you trying to summon Gabriel?_ ”

“I –”

Asmodeus didn’t know about the dreams. Sam had understood that, intellectually, but only now did the significance of it hit him. He didn’t know Gabriel was still awake behind those blank, glassy eyes. He didn’t know Gabriel was trying to escape.

If he started telling a lie, trying to spin a story, there was a risk he’d give something away. He licked his bloodied lips.

“Go – fuck – yourself,” he said.

“You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?” snarled Asmodeus. “Well, as the man in the movie says: if that’s the way he wants it, why then, that’s the way he gets it!”

His lungs were burning again. He couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about. The only thing left in his head was the conviction, strong as an iron chain, that he had to keep quiet. Torture broke people: that was a fact. You saw yourself degraded, torn apart, humiliated, and you recoiled from it, and seized on anything that offered you relief. You could survive only if you had something besides yourself to cling to. Political prisoners survived by thinking of the cause, or despising their captors. Kidnapping victims remembered their families. Sam had only the thought that if he didn’t speak, didn’t say a word, there was a chance – however small – that he and Gabriel would both be able to escape. Just as long as he kept quiet.

He was lying on his back, and blood was running into his eyes. He didn’t know if he’d scratched his own face or if he’d gashed himself on something. It didn’t really matter.

“I’d send my people to have a word with your pet angel if I didn’t think Heaven’s soldiers would come to his defence,” said Asmodeus. “We’ll see about him. As for you –”

He knelt down and took hold of Sam’s chin.

“I could rip the truth right out of your head,” he said. “Angels ain’t the only ones who can control human minds. Soon’s I was done you’d be more than happy to tell me all your little secrets.”

Sam flinched. Remembered Gadreel, and Meg, and –

_No,_ _please God, no. Anything but that._

“Trouble is, you ain’t quite human, are you?” Asmodeus smiled. “Not all the way. That psychic mojo you’ve got – I can feel it. You’re a tough nut to crack. So to speak. I’ve a suspicion that if I should try laying a spell on you, I’d end up squishing your brain into paste by the time I got you to talk.” He brushed his fingers along Sam’s temple. “But you would talk,” he said.

Sam’s heart was thudding in his breast. He was past any sort of rational thought. His mind clicked from one impossible image to the next like the reel of the View-Master toy he’d had as kid: bolting for the door – smashing his fist into Asmodeus’s face – running – running – 

“But not yet,” said Asmodeus. “Your brother might not like it if I hand you over a drooling vegetable.”

Sam held still, not daring to move – 

But Asmodeus, thank God, had turned away from him. He was standing in front of Gabriel. “Well, son,” he said, coaxingly. The way you’d talk to a child or a dog. “How do you like your new friend? He seems rather fond of _you_.”

Gabriel had clasped his arms in opposite hands. As Sam watched, he began to rake his nails up and down, tearing almost frantically at his own skin, keening softly, though there was no expression on his face. Beads of blood welled up. 

“Hush,” said Asmodeus, “hush now. It’s all right.”

He bent and kissed Gabriel on the forehead. The noise stopped as if somebody had shut off a cassette player. Sam’s stomach turned. At the same time a memory came back to him. A silver-velvet voice: _I’ve got you, Sam. See, it doesn’t have to be so bad down here. Not all the time. Just learn to listen a little better, that’s all I ask –_

“I regret that I can’t provide you with separate accommodations. But it’s a small house,” said Asmodeus. “And I’m too fond of it to move. I know, I know. You ain’t gonna complain. I broke you of that particular bad habit.”

He caressed Gabriel’s face. His nails were sharp: a new line of blood welled up on Gabriel’s right cheek. One more kiss. Then he straightened up.

“We’re done here,” he said to Sam. “For now.”

The door creaked shut. Sam heard the click of the lock.

Then they were alone.

“You know,” he said to Gabriel, hoarsely, “if this is all some trick of yours, feel free to tell me.”

* * *

The thing he couldn’t understand, which ate at him in the hours that followed, was what exactly Asmodeus wanted with Gabriel in the first place. Was he, like Cuthbert Sinclair, just a collector of the rare and exotic? But nothing about the small, Spartan cottage – built sometime in the ‘20s or ‘30s, he guessed – with its plain furnishings and its handful of servants reminded him of Sinclair’s insane acquisitiveness. And judging by what Asmodeus had said to Gabriel he probably wasn’t keeping any other prisoners.

Sheer sadism, then: the pleasure of breaking what should have been unbreakable. Maybe. But Asmodeus struck him as basically practical-minded. An unrestrained sadist would have either tortured Sam to death in the dining room or reduced his brain to mush, and never mind bargaining with Crowley’s new knight. Asmodeus enjoyed hurting people, but he was smart enough to protect himself, too. Not the type to take unnecessary risks. And keeping Gabriel prisoner _was_ risky. Powerful as Asmodeus was, Sam doubted he could stand up against the forces of Heaven if they mounted a rescue. He’d all but admitted as much.

Conclusion: there was some other reason.

Gabriel might have known, but he wasn’t talking. He hadn’t moved from his place against the wall since Asmodeus had left. Sam had tried twice more to speak to him, but Gabriel only looked at him with a sort of uncomprehending terror, and in the end he’d given up. A guilty part of him was afraid of triggering another surge of grace.

With nothing else to do, he took stock of the room. Besides the mattress, there was a slop bucket – either unused or freshly sanitised – and a pile of old newspapers. Which showed some consideration, anyway, he thought bitterly. A spider ran over his hand when he turned them over. There was no closet, but he could see a lighter squarish patch on the wallpaper where a wardrobe might have stood, once upon a time. He wondered if the house had originally belonged to Asmodeus’s vessel. _Special offer. Free cottage with possession._

He was getting morbid again. He dug his nails into his palm. The air was warm and sticky, syrupy with humidity. He guessed he must still be somewhere in the South. He couldn’t say exactly how long they’d been on the road after Asmodeus had captured him, but he didn’t think it had been more than ten hours or so.

His mouth was dry, and his stomach ached. He’d been captured at around half past eleven in the evening. They’d given him a little water when he came to, but assuming it was now mid-afternoon, he hadn’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours. He shut his eyes, imagining himself at home in the Bunker library. Sitting in the warm lamplight with a cold beer at hand – hell, a soda would be nice at this point – and a plate of Dean’s chili fries. Or Cobb salad, the lettuce dewy, the tomatoes sweet as sugar. Garlic bread dripping with butter. Fish and chips –

The sound of footsteps brought him back to the bedroom. He froze.

_He’s changed his mind: he’s going to do it after all, take control of my brain –_

But it wasn’t Asmodeus. It was a demon he hadn’t seen before: a petite woman in a Chanel suit. She walked past Sam as if he were invisible and hauled Gabriel to his feet. Sam had the sense of watching a pattern repeat itself. Both of them seemed used to this, somehow. Gabriel let her pull him out of the room. The door shut. The lock clicked. 

The sky outside the window grew dimmer, flared briefly with sunset colours, turned bluish-black. His awareness was narrowing: shrinking down to the growing cottony dryness of his mouth, the worsening pain in his stomach. Partly it was deliberate. He was trying, to his own shame, not to imagine what might be happening to Gabriel downstairs. If Asmodeus was making him choke and writhe and gasp on the floor, if he was cutting into Gabriel’s arms, his face, the soles of his feet –

But he was walking under his own power, at least, when the demon brought him back. Sam lifted his head. “Are you –” He licked his lips, futilely. “Are you okay?” he whispered.

“Shut up,” snapped the demon. “Don’t talk to him.”

Gabriel had found his corner again. He was curled up with his head resting on his knees. The demon set a tray down on the floor.

“Here,” she said to Sam. “Eat.”

As soon as she’d gone Sam dragged himself forward. _Oh thank you, God, thank you_. A bowl of vegetable soup, two pieces of soft white bread, apparently homemade, a piece of cooked chicken, a mug of coffee. He tore off a hunk of bread – his broken finger sent a jarring shock of pain through his arm, but never mind it, never mind – and dunked it in the soup and swallowed it without bothering to chew. A faint noise came from the corner.

He turned. Gabriel started at the sudden movement, and Sam, with exaggerated care, put out his good hand, palm up. _See? I’m not a threat._ “Gabriel?” he said. Wide eyes stared back at him. A nasty thought struck him. “Do you – are you hungry?” _Surely not: if he was human enough to be hungry, he’d be dying of infection from those stitches._ But how could you be sure? “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t take those out. Not without any tools.”

His stomach growled. He tore off another piece of bread. _Starving yourself won’t do a damn thing to help him,_ he told himself firmly, and made himself eat. The hunger pains began to ease. He gulped down the coffee. It was good: rich and dark. Asmodeus must enjoy his food. Well, some demons did. God knew Crowley had always had a taste for the finer things in life.

Afterwards he lay still, feeling a little better. But only a little. His thoughts were fixed on his brother. A Knight of Hell. Working for Crowley. _Dean, what are you doing?_ The walls seemed to press in on him. How much time was he going to lose, trapped here? How much longer was Dean going to be in the wind? And Cas –

_I should’ve been kinder to Cas,_ he thought.

But Cas would be fine. He had to believe that. He wasn’t going to be here long enough for Cas to get any worse.

It was while he was thinking over their last conversation that the cramps hit. _Then I’ll have been useful as long as I can…_ His guts twisted and spasmed. A new fear flashed in his brain: some kind of internal injury? Then bile rose in his throat and he had to drag himself to the bucket. His cracked ribs protested as he vomited.

Not an internal injury. _Something in the food,_ he realised, and was seized by a humiliating urge to burst into tears. It wasn’t only the pain, but a stupid, childish sense of unfairness. Wasn’t it enough to beat him, to threaten him, to leave him gasping on the floor? Wasn’t he going to be allowed any kind of respite?

Another wave of vomiting hit. He was throwing up a thin greenish liquid. There was nothing left in his stomach. He lay down, too worn out even to drag himself back to the mattress, and rested his head on his good arm – mindful of his broken finger – and blinked blearily into the darkness. Gabriel was still watching him. “You –”

Gabriel’s eyes darted away.

“It’s okay,” said Sam, quickly, “it’s okay. I – I get it. You were trying to – to warn me.” He swallowed. “Thanks,” he said.

No answer, of course. Gabriel didn’t even look at him again. But it was proof that somebody was still in there. The lights were still on. Even if Gabriel didn’t remember him, he at least thought of Sam as an ally. Somebody to protect, to the small degree that he could.

Another wave of nausea hit him. He groaned – knowing he couldn’t possibly prop himself up again. After a moment or two it passed.

“Gabriel, listen to me,” he said. “We’re gonna get out of here. Cas – you remember Cas, right? Castiel. Your brother. Well, Cas and I – we’re, uh, dealing with a kind of a screwed-up situation.” He licked his cracked lips, realised there was no concise way of explaining what had happened to Dean – if Gabriel even remembered Dean, or cared – and let the subject drop. “The important thing is, we’re on the road a lot. Working apart. And we check in with each other every week, minimum. When I don’t call, he’s gonna come looking for me.”

Actually, of course, there was no guarantee of that. Even assuming Cas was well enough to start searching for him, whatever warding Asmodeus had devised must be nigh-impenetrable, or else Gabriel would have called someone for help: Heaven, or whichever of his pagan friends had survived the Apocalypse, or even the Winchesters themselves.

Sam wasn’t going to let himself think about it. Not right now.

“And when I bust out of here,” he went on, “you’re gonna come with, okay? Man, Cas is gonna be so happy to see you.” He didn’t know whether Gabriel and Cas had been friends once upon a time, or what – Cas wasn’t really inclined to talk about it – but Cas had been clearly broken up, in his quiet way, after Metatron’s trick.

Gabriel’s head tilted. Sam thought, _Yes!_

“But you – you’ve gotta break out of this shell you’ve built, okay? I know you’re trying to communicate. Those dreams you sent me –”

He didn’t realise he’d reached out his good hand till Gabriel recoiled with a hurt-animal noise. He scrambled to the farthest corner, his arms flying up to cover his face to protect himself.

“No, no – it’s okay – damn it, it’s just me! Gabriel, you _know_ me!”

But it was no good. Gabriel’s head was buried in his arms again. Whatever Sam said, however much he pleaded, Gabriel wouldn’t – or couldn’t – move.

_Nice going, champ,_ Lucifer whispered in his head.

It was an hour or so later that he first heard it. Slow and raspy, snuffling a little. The sound of another person’s breathing. He glanced over at Gabriel again. At first he thought Gabriel was just resting, huddled in a ball to protect himself. Then, startled, he looked closer. Gabriel’s eyes were shut. His chest rose and fell. He was asleep.

Sam watched him, numbly. An idea was starting to take root. With it came a feeling of queasy horror. What the hell had Asmodeus done to him?

*** * ***

It was a long while before he managed to fall asleep. He hurt too much to stay in one position very long. But finally exhaustion overcame him, and he felt himself floating off into the darkness, curled up on the floor.

When he opened his eyes he wasn’t in the bedroom. He was standing on the stone terrace of a huge old-fashioned house, in the centre of a crush of people. He had a muddled, dizzy impression of feathers and beads and sequins, glowing lanterns and sparkling champagne and a thrum of low, constant laughter. The air was full of smoke and perfume. He was dressed again, not in the swallowtail-and-white tie that the other men were wearing, but in his own clothes. The pain of his injuries was still present, but muted, as if he was remembering something that had happened a long time ago.

“Quite a crowd,” somebody said, squeezing by, and somebody else said, “What do you expect, knowing him?”

He concentrated. Now that he knew what to look for, he could sense something – a _presence_ – clinging to him like one transparency layered on top of another. He imagined peeling it away, separating the layers, working carefully –

And Gabriel stood in front of him. Not as he really was, small and frail and wounded, but as he’d looked four years ago, the last time Sam had seen him, his face unmarked, his eyes clear. Dressed in an ordinary jacket and jeans.

“I knew it was you,” Sam said. His voice broke. “I knew it. Gabe, man: what happened to you?”

Gabriel didn’t say a word. He seemed to look past Sam, or through him. Distantly Sam heard the pop of champagne corks.

“Gabriel. _Please._ Talk to me. Asmodeus has warding up, right? So how did you get into my dreams? Hell, how are you even _sleeping?_ ”

He knew he must sound half-crazy. But he couldn’t help it. He was like a drowning person whose fingers had found the end of the tow-rope. And in a perfect world, he reflected, that would have been the moment Gabriel said – well, anything: _Hey, kiddo! Long time, no see. How’ve you been?_ Or: _I’m guessing you have some questions._ Or even: _You were supposed to rescue me, idiot, not get yourself captured too._

Instead Gabriel stared at him for about five seconds. Then he turned away. 

And Sam woke up. Gabriel was awake too: he stirred on the other side of the room, looking momentarily lost – as if he hadn’t quite remembered where he was. Then he stiffened. His eyes locked onto Sam. Sam said, helplessly, “Gabriel, _please –_ ”

It was no use. He might as well have been talking to himself.

Was Gabriel human after all? Or nearly human? Angels didn’t sleep. Sam wasn’t sure they could even if they wanted to. But then how was he getting into Sam’s dreams? And if he still possessed the kind of power needed to dream-walk, why wasn’t he using it to escape – or to send a message to someone who could actually bust him out?

Fury shot through him. _For Christ’s sake, Gabriel, you’ve been trying to get my attention for weeks. So why won’t you_ say _anything?_ He bit his tongue. He knew all about the effects of sustained torture, about the semi-stupor that came upon you after a while. It wasn’t a question of personal strength. Under a sufficient amount of strain, the mind simply gave way. You ate and washed if you were ordered to, and went where you were made to go, and otherwise you sat and looked at the wall. _Have a little compassion,_ he ordered himself.

But the fierce, nagging pain of his injuries, the trickle of blood into his eyes from the gashes on his face, made it hard to think of anyone but himself. It was almost a relief when one of the demons came in and hauled him downstairs.

* * *

This time the table was in the centre of the dining room. Asmodeus was sitting at one end. In front of him were four or five dishes: oatmeal with cream, bacon, fried potatoes, sliced melon. Sam’s mouth watered. “Samuel,” said Asmodeus, “good morning.”

“What do you want?”

The demon forced him down into the chair across from Asmodeus. The white suit was pristine as usual. Sam wished again that they hadn’t taken his clothes. Asmodeus cut himself a bite of bacon, swallowed it, and placed his fork neatly on his plate.

“I want to talk to you, son. Man to man. Or man to – well, you know.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“Maybe not now, son. But you will.” He gave one of his dangerous smiles. “First things first.” There was a smartphone lying beside his plate. Sam recognised his own phone: they’d taken it when they stripped him. “Excuse my rudeness,” said Asmodeus. He picked it up and dialled. “Cas,” he said, and Sam’s heart jolted. It was his own voice. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. Sorry. I got kinda caught up dealing with that thing I told you about. How you – how you holding up?”

Sam couldn’t look away from him. _It isn’t me, Cas: you’ve got to hear the difference, you’ve got to –_

“All right, man. Be safe, okay? I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

Asmodeus set down the phone.

“You think your friend’s looking for you,” he said. “But he don’t even know you’re missing. He can’t hear your prayers from inside this house. Oh, I suppose he might guess something’s amiss in a few weeks’ time, when he lies dying and you ain’t at his side to comfort him – but by then it won’t much matter, will it?”

What had Cas told him? “ _Is_ he dying?”

Asmodeus gave a short, joyless laugh. “Maybe so,” he said. “Maybe not. Must be eating you alive, huh, not knowing.” The smile was still fixed in place. “Now let’s try again. Why were you trying to summon Gabriel?”

Sam shut his eyes for a second. A drop of blood ran down his cheek.

_Sorry, Cas._

“Yeah,” he said. “I get the point. Go to hell.”

The blade of Asmodeus’s knife scraped against the china. The amiable look melted away.

“You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head,” he said, “or I’ll have to punish you.”

“Right. Like you did to Gabriel, huh?”

“Gabriel had to be taught a lesson _,_ ” said Asmodeus. “But he learnt. In the end, he learnt.” He speared another piece of bacon. “I _broke_ him. An archangel of the Heavenly Host. You think I can’t break you? Huh?”

“You want the truth?” said Sam. He met Asmodeus’s eyes. “I think you’re a fucking joke compared to Lucifer,” he said. “That’s what I think.”

He knew it was stupid even while he was speaking. But he couldn’t help it. What was foremost in his mind – what he recoiled from – was the memory of Gabriel, cringing helplessly while Asmodeus kissed his hair. Better to go down spitting vitriol.

This time Asmodeus broke his right index finger.

* * *

_When you’re in a jam,_ his father had told him once, _don’t sit around wishing for something you haven’t got. Use what you have._

_What if you don’t have anything?_

_Then you’ve still got your eyes and ears._

He was convinced that Cas hadn’t said anything about the dreams. Asmodeus would have done something about it if he had. _What,_ exactly, Sam wasn’t sure – and he didn’t particularly want to imagine – but something, surely. Letting your prisoners speak to each other behind your back was too much of a risk. Even if one of them wasn’t saying much at the moment. They’d shared one more dream, and Gabriel hadn’t been any more communicative than before.

It was inevitable, of course, that Cas would eventually give something away. If he thought he was talking to Sam –

But there was nothing Sam could do about that. Nothing except try to get the hell out of here before that particular problem reared its head.

He limped around the room whenever he was capable of getting to his feet: inspecting the door, testing the lock and the hinges, looking over the mattress, picking at the worn patch on the side facing the wall. Once he touched the bars on the window with one finger, experimentally, and got a jolt that made him hiss with pain. His fingertip was covered with a shiny burn, as if he’d pressed it against a hot burner. Warded, like he’d guessed.

It was the light fixture that gave him his first idea, though as chance had it, it didn’t end up actually featuring in the plan. It was the only light in the room: an old-fashioned fluted bowl hung by a chain. He’d eyed it for a few days, wondering if he could break it somehow. The ceiling was low enough that he thought he might be able to manage it. Eventually he’d discovered that by standing on his toes and stretching his good arm he could touch the ceiling easily. Though he had to brace himself against the wall to do it. Standing at all for too long caused his feet and ribs to groan with pain.

He _might_ be able to shatter the light, but whether he could do anything with a few pieces of broken glass before the demons got hold of him was another question. But the ceiling –

He let the thought percolate. It was the start of a plan, anyway.

He began to differentiate amongst Asmodeus’s servants. There weren’t as many as he’d have expected: only three, as far he could tell. He gave them nicknames. Mickey, the one whose meatsuit was taller even than Sam himself, all hard muscle, who liked to read Mickey Spillane paperbacks while he waited for Asmodeus to finish with Sam in the dining room. Coco, possessing the tiny blonde in the powder-blue Chanel suit. The third, the other demon who’d been at the bar, was in his own way, Sam had decided, the worst of them: whenever he came upstairs unaccompanied by Asmodeus, to clean out the slop bucket or deliver the food tray, he wore a pair of cheap headphones that bled the tinny sound of the same four or five Elton John tracks over and over. At least he could ignore the other two, mostly. Not Elton. “ _Between you and me, I could honestly sa-a-ay that things can only get better –”_

_Oh, shut up!_

His meals weren’t always drugged. He had to eat – the possibility of future pain was less real than the present pain of hunger. And the food was usually edible. Apparently Asmodeus wasn’t going to starve him to death. _Just half to death,_ Sam thought, picking over a chicken thigh. He’d tried working out the math in his head, imagining how much muscle mass he was losing as the days went on, but between the emetics and the lack of exercise it was hard to judge exactly. His fingers dug into the meat – still warm from the oven – and met bone.

_Use what you have._

_Sure, MacGyver._ Sam imagined his brother’s voice. _You’re gonna Shawshank your way outta here with a couple of chicken bones. This is stupid._

He was inclined to agree, at least if he thought about it for more than a few minutes. But he saved the bones anyway. His picking at the mattress cover had finally yielded an inch-long tear. Not much, but enough to conceal something small, especially if you shoved the mattress flush against the wall. He pushed the bones inside one at a time. Never more than one from every other meal. Maggots got to them, and later on flies, but there were enough flies already gathering around the slop bucket that he didn’t think it was likely to draw suspicion.

Gabriel saw, of course, and made a frightened, protesting sound the first time Sam shifted the mattress and retrieved one of the bones. But Sam ignored him. _You’re gonna get out of here whether you like it or not._

_“And I thank the Lord there’s people out there like you –”_

It was during one of Elton’s shifts that another idea came to him. He had Plan A. Plan A was what he was doing with the chicken bones. Plan A, however, was – no point in pretending otherwise – a hell of a long shot. So why not work on a Plan B, if he could?

Elton was wiping down the patch of floor where the slop bucket usually stood. Coco had carried it out for cleaning. Gabriel wasn’t in the room: he’d been taken downstairs about an hour ago. Sam sat up carefully, leaning against the wall. “Hey,” he said. “Hey!” Elton glared at him, pulling up one headphone. “Listen to me a sec,” said Sam.

“What?” snapped Elton. “Any complaints about the service, you can talk to the management.”

“No,” said Sam. _“For unless they see the sky, but they can’t, and that is why,”_ the headphones warbled. “No, I want to talk to _you_ , okay? Look, you – do you know anything about my brother? Dean Winchester?”

“Everyone knows about the Winchesters,” said Elton.

“Right. But did Asmodeus tell you why he’s keeping me here?” The grudging curiosity in Elton’s face showed that he hadn’t. “My brother,” he stumbled over the words, “my brother isn’t human. Not anymore. He’s a Knight of Hell. Working for Crowley.”

“A Knight,” Elton repeated. _Now I’ve got your attention,_ Sam thought. “How does a hunter become a Knight of Hell?”

“He took on the Mark of Cain. And then he – then he died.”

“And came back with a pair of black eyes.”

“Pretty much. The point is, _Asmodeus is scared of him_ ,” said Sam. “He’s keeping me as a bargaining chip in case Crowley decides to send my brother after him. But –”

Elton looked at him sharply.

“You want me to help you escape,” he said.

Not exactly falling over himself to agree. But he wasn’t saying no, either. That was something. Sam thought carefully about what to say next.

“If you know about us,” he said, “about the Winchesters, then you know there’s nothing we won’t do to save each other. _Nothing._ Anything you ask for, anything you want – my brother will make it happen. _If_ you help me. But if he finds this place on his own – and he _will,_ sooner or later _–_ he’s gonna cut his way through everyone here to get to me.”

He fell silent. Let the implication sink in. For all he knew, of course, everything he’d just said was a lie. His brother would’ve turned the world upside-down to get to him – had done in the past. But who knew what was left of his brother now?

Elton fiddled with his headphones.

“You know technically I work for Crowley,” he said. Sam blinked at him in surprise. “He struck a deal with Asmodeus a couple of years ago. Mutual nonaggression pact. We were part of the, uh – the compensation.”

Sam nodded slowly. The wheels in his brain were turning. It made sense, he thought. Petty as it was. Asmodeus wasn’t the kind to do his own cooking and cleaning. He’d probably kept human servants before. No doubt these three were passing everything they heard back to Crowley – but then human servants would have been equally likely to go to the police, or the news. And from what he’d seen of Asmodeus they were probably passing on exactly what he wanted them to. He wondered, not for the first time, who Asmodeus really was – what position he’d held in Hell before he’d come topside. Why he’d come to earth in the first place. 

But the important thing was, Elton wouldn’t have volunteered the information if he hadn’t been half-interested. Whether consciously or not, he was practically asking Sam to persuade him.

“Okay,” said Sam. “Okay. So you work for Crowley. And if I know Crowley,” spinning the web, willing Elton to keep listening, “he can’t be happy with Asmodeus having any kind of leverage over his knight. You get me out, and Asmodeus’s got no insurance if Crowley sends Dean after him. No way of saving himself. I bet Crowley’d like that.”

“He’d be thrilled,” said Elton. He’d set down the rag. _Got you. Just need to reel you in_. “Asmodeus scares him. Same with the others. He always talked about wanting some kind of weapon to use against them. Just in case they changed their mind about staying out of the game.”

_The others?_ Were there more yellow-eyed demons out there – hiding somewhere? But that would keep. Right now: spin the web.

He said, “That’s what I thought. Might even be a promotion in it for you. It’s gotta be better than scrubbing out a slop bucket, huh?”

“And you care so much about my job satisfaction.”

“Not really,” said Sam. “I just want to get out of here. Your choice whether you take advantage of the opportunity.”

Elton said, “You really think your brother’ll do something for me?”

“Anything you want. Just get us out –”

The web tore apart. Elton’s face shuttered.

“You’re planning to take _him_ with you.” He shook his head. “Forget it,” he said.

_Oh, for fuck’s sake._ Out loud he said, “Man, I get it. It’s a risk – going against Asmodeus. But you –”

“It isn’t Asmodeus I’m worried about.” He gave a short laugh. “I get you out,” he said, “you go back to your life, right? Hunting boogeymen and hustling pool. Maybe you even keep your end of the deal. ‘Cause you’re such a stand-up guy. But Gabriel – he’ll go back to Heaven. And when he tells them I had a hand in keeping him prisoner – it won’t matter that I helped him. Angels don’t forgive. They don’t show mercy. They’ll burn this whole place to ashes. And everyone here with it.”

“Gabriel isn’t – isn’t really an ordinary kind of angel,” said Sam. His heart was sinking through his stomach. He’d been so close. Elton rolled his eyes. “ _Please,_ just listen to me –” But it was no good. Elton threw the rag over his arm and went out.

_Goddammit,_ Sam thought, viciously, as the lock clicked shut. _God-fucking-dammit._

So much for Plan B.

*** * ***

Another dream that night. Mardi Gras: he recognised the streets of New Orleans, packed full of partygoers. And Gabriel: a silent, sad-eyed ghost in a battered canvas jacket.

* * *

“Hey,” said Mickey. “Hey, you.”

They’d left him alone, mostly, for what Sam guessed was about eight hours since his last interrogation. A few hours ago – three or four, maybe – Coco had come in with a tray. His stomach was growling, but he left it alone. His hunger wasn’t yet urgent enough to be worth the risk of whatever might be in the food. He’d lain still on the mattress, now and then shuddering when a louse crawled over his face. The light in the room slowly took on a sickly orange cast. Boredom, Sam had read somewhere, was one of the worst possible tortures – worse in its way than physical pain. What people didn’t understand was that even when you were paralysed with fear you could still, in whatever corner of your mind was left to you, be bored almost to death.

At long last, the door creaked. His heart began to beat hard. He recognised Mickey’s heavy tread on the old floorboards. He’d come back for the tray.

“Hey,” he said, trying again. “Are you sick? Come on, get up.”

Sam had broken open one of the wounds on his side, a long shallow cut made by Asmodeus’s knife. His left index finger was sticky with drying blood. He kept his hand carefully palm-down on the mattress. As long as nobody looked too closely –

“ _Hey!_ ” Mickey shouted.

_Come on,_ Sam urged him mentally, _come on._ He was banking on the fact that, whatever else he might do, Asmodeus wouldn’t – couldn’t – let him die. If he thought Sam might be on the verge of shock, or sepsis –

He heard the creak of footsteps again. Leaving the bedroom. _Damn it –_ He chanced lifting his head, just a little, and saw Gabriel pressed against the wall, his eyes wide – pleading silently. _Sorry, Gabe. You’re just gonna have to trust me on this one._

Minutes passed. Impossible to know how long. At last he heard the door opening again. “– blood poisoning, maybe,” Mickey was saying. “The knife –”

“Well, now,” said Asmodeus, “we’ll see about that. If he needs livening up, we have our home remedies. Samuel, son, you still alive?”

_Don’t move._ He heard Gabriel keening softly in the corner. A swell of irritation bubbled up. _Why don’t you even try to fight back against Asmodeus? If I were you –_

He’d used half a dozen bones, in the end. The paint on the ceiling was harder to mark than he’d anticipated. He’d been afraid of scratching too deeply, of leaving a gouge that you’d see as soon as you came into the room: he meant only to trace out the thinnest possible outline. Instead he had to worry about snapping his tools trying to make any kind of mark at all. The first time it happened he stared at the broken ends, wondering blankly how to dispose of them. In the end they went back into the mattress.

The floor creaked. Then a sharp breath –

He started up just in time to see Asmodeus stop short, under the devil’s trap Sam had scratched into the ceiling. His face darkened.

“Samuel,” he barked, “what the _hell_ is this?”

“Take a guess, asshole.” Mickey took a step forward. “ _Don’t!”_ snapped Sam, and raised his left hand. His right fingers were clumsy, but he’d still managed to draw the Enochian sigil on his palm. Tracing it in his own blood. 

Gabriel was still whimpering. Never mind Gabriel. They were almost out. 

“I was trying to trap your flunky over there,” Sam said to Asmodeus. “But you’ll do.” He turned his hand so that Asmodeus could see the sigil clearly. Then he leant against the wall, and pulled himself slowly, painfully to his feet. “Here’s the deal,” he said. His body – bruised, bleeding – protested. _Just a little longer,_ he told himself. _A little longer._ “You let us go. Both of us. You don’t come after us. And in return, I don’t incinerate you. You saw that sigil. It’s old Enochian magic. Capable of destroying anything short of an angel.” 

Asmodeus looked at him with eyes full of storm clouds. “How do I know you ain’t gonna roast me alive as soon as you leave here?” he said. “Or send your brother after me?”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Uh-huh. Promises, Samuel, are a dime a dozen.”

“Look, I don’t _care_ about you. Just let us go. Both of us.”

_Come on come on please God let him agree –_

Then Asmodeus’s lips curved in a smile.

“Well,” he said, “it’s a fair and generous offer. Truly. But there’s, uh – there’s one small snag.” The smile was still fixed in place. Creeping unease took hold of Sam. “I guessed your scheme soon’s I walked into the room,” he said. “Old hunter’s trick, huh. But I’ve got some tricks of my own.”

And he sauntered out from under the devil’s trap.

Sam jerked back. His guts had turned to ice.

_It can’t be it can’t how –_

Asmodeus nodded. “Your little trap can’t hold me, Samuel,” he said. “And I tell you one thing more. You’re bluffing. You think I don’t know Enochian magic? There ain’t no kind of magic I don’t know. That sigil’s just a ward of protection, nothing more.” Sam had his back to the wall. There was no escape, nowhere to run. Asmodeus brushed his fingers down his cheek. “I warned you not to try me,” he said, and lashed out with a blow that drove Sam to the floor. Stars exploded around him. When he could see again Asmodeus was standing over him. “Now you’re gonna take your punishment like a good boy, you hear?”

Sam’s eyes darted, uselessly, to Gabriel.

“Oh, he ain’t gonna come to your rescue,” said Asmodeus – and he put out his hand in the gesture Sam had come to dread. He opened his mouth, trying to find the words that would save him –

– and then his lungs were full of fire, his throat was being crushed, and he forgot about anything except the pain. There was no room in his head for anything else. At some point – it must have been during a brief respite, or he’d never have had the breath to speak – he heard himself screaming:

“Gabriel! Gabriel, help me, _please!”_

Asmodeus was saying something – he couldn’t make out what. Somewhere distant he heard another voice, the silvery voice that was more familiar to him than his own thoughts: _Hold on tight, Sam. We’re just getting started._

“ _Gabriel, please!”_

He knew perfectly well – though he didn’t know why – that Gabriel couldn’t even save himself, let alone Sam. But you didn’t think about things like that when you were choking on the floor. You couldn’t. All you thought of, all you _could_ think of, was yourself.

_Gotta say, bunk buddy, I love how_ responsive _you are. I mean, how long’s it been? Five minutes? Seven, maybe? And you’re already a hot mess. Think we can, uh, keep it going all night?_

Asmodeus was still looming over him. Laughing, maybe. But it was all right. What he was experiencing now had happened to him sometimes in the Cage. At the same time as he writhed on the floor, he saw himself as thought he was standing on the other side of the room. A part of him, the part still capable of thinking and reasoning, had detached itself from his physical body. He still felt the pain – but it had nothing to do with him. What was happening was happening to somebody else.

* * *

Somebody was watching him.

He was seven years old, and he was tucked in bed and his brother was watching him. He’d been sitting by the bed all day because Sam had the flu and the thermometer had read 102° that morning and Dad was out on a hunt. Dean hadn’t wanted Dad to go. But Sam didn’t care. He had Dean: he didn’t need anybody else. Dean wiped his forehead and made Sam sit up and swallow ibuprofen and sip water or grape juice and then laid him back down again and switched on the crappy little TV set to a _Star Trek_ rerun. Sam drifted in and out of sleep, and whenever he woke up, his brother was there.

_Hey, Sammy. You’re gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be okay –_

He came back to himself slowly. A handful of impressions began to collect in his brain. The smell of old blood. The feel of the mattress underneath him. For a second or two he lay frozen, waiting for Asmodeus to start again. But nothing happened.

He wasn’t capable of moving even to prop himself up. He managed to lift his head a little bit. Asmodeus had gone, he realised blurrily. The door was shut. There was a new gouge in the ceiling – breaking the delicate, almost invisible lines of the trap. Then he started. Gabriel was kneeling a few feet away from the mattress. Close enough to touch.

Sam wet his lips. He’d bitten his cheek, and a little blood dribbled out over his chin.

“Ss – ss – sorry,” he slurred. He couldn’t manage anything more. _Sorry I failed,_ he meant. _Sorry you had to watch. Sorry, sorry –_

Gabriel didn’t move. Sam glanced away. Under the bitterness of having failed, under the smothering fog of pain, a question was taking shape in his mind. The million-dollar question: _How did he get out of the devil’s trap?_ Even Azazel hadn’t been able to cross a devil’s trap. And they were the same kind of demon, surely: they had to be –

But he couldn’t pursue the thought. The pain rose up again and swallowed him whole. He lay still, shivering, trying to will himself back into the motel room, into a warm bed with Dean at his side. _Dean, where are you?_

_Right here, Sammy. It’s okay. Sit up a sec, lemme get you some water –_

Something brushed his left hand. He flinched – then blinked disbelievingly. Gabriel’s face was expressionless. But Sam hadn’t imagined the touch. Gabriel’s hand – small and cold and dirty – had come to rest over his own.

“Sorry,” Sam whispered, again.

Gabriel didn’t give any sign that he’d heard him. But he didn’t pull away, either.

He only realised he’d fallen asleep – mercifully – when he found himself in a muddled dream of packing a heap of shirts and jeans into his duffle. Nothing significant: just an old memory dredged up from somewhere. Then, abruptly, the texture of the dream shifted. A lakeshore, this time: he was standing on a pebbled beach, looking out over glass-bright water under huge, sheltering mountain peaks. Just as before the pain of his injuries was muted somehow. He reached for what he now realised was the mental division between himself and Gabriel – delicate as onion-skin, distinct as oil and water – and this time something met him, pulled with him, and they were separate again, standing at the water’s edge.

“Don’t leave,” Sam blurted. “Don’t wake me up. Please –”

Gabriel sat down on the rocks, drawing his knees up to his chest. Sam crouched beside him. He reached for Gabriel’s hand.

“Gabriel,” he said, “Gabriel, talk to me. _Please_. I know he’s hurt you. I know he scares you. Me too. But I – I don’t think I can hang on too much longer by myself. I –” He broke off. “I need you,” he said.

Gabriel hadn’t even turned to look at him.

“Hell,” he said, quietly. “You don’t even remember me, do you?”

He squeezed Gabriel’s fingers. Maybe this was all he was going to get. Maybe it was all Gabriel was capable of. Offering a little comfort to somebody he’d decided was an ally, not because of any shared history, but simply because they were trapped together in the same nightmare.

_It doesn’t matter,_ Sam thought. _Even if you don’t remember me, even if you don’t know who I am, I’m still gonna keep trying to save you._

And what history _did_ they share, really? Possibly, in the remaining fragments of Gabriel’s mind, he remembered the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t, and maybe even that the Winchesters had been his brothers’ destined vessels. But beyond that – they hadn’t exactly been on Christmas card terms. A couple of meetings over the years. Gabriel trying to teach him a lesson at the Mystery Spot. Trying to browbeat him and Dean into saying yes. Plunging into his dreams to berate him.

And the spark Sam had felt the first time they’d met, which hadn’t guttered out even after Gabriel had revealed himself, even after the Mystery Spot – well, Gabriel was a living god: maybe he had that effect on everyone. Or maybe it was just that he was Sam’s type: smart and mouthy and dangerous. Or hell, maybe there’d been something in the water at Crawford Hall and he’d never gotten over it. He didn’t delude himself that any interest Gabriel might have taken in him – or Dean, for that matter – had been based on anything but their status as Heaven’s Most Wanted.

Loneliness sank its claws into him, worse than any physical pain, and for a moment he had to bite his tongue: he was afraid he might start crying. He understood now why Gabriel had protested when he’d started scratching the trap into the ceiling. It wasn’t only fear of what Asmodeus would do when Sam’s scheme failed. It was the fear of letting yourself imagine getting out, and then waking up from the daydream and finding yourself still stuck in the filthy bedroom with your own blood dried on the walls. If you didn’t let yourself hope, you at least spared yourself that fatal, crushing disappointment.

He’d hoped, till now, that some part of Gabriel had survived. 

“Please,” said a voice – a snide, familiar voice.

Wishful thinking. Or a hallucination. He’d been hearing Lucifer more often lately, too.

Then Gabriel jabbed him in the shoulder – hard – and _that,_ surely, wasn’t just wishful thinking. Sam’s head snapped around. His heart was hammering as if he’d downed four cups of coffee. Gabriel was looking at him. Not the blank, slack look he wore most of the time when they were awake. He looked blessedly, _humanly_ impatient.

“Please,” he said again. “Like I’d forget you.”

_Hallelujah,_ thought Sam, a little hysterically, _he’s alive in there after all._

“So tell me,” said Gabriel, “what’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note - you'll notice the chapter count has gone up from six to seven. This is because ~~math is hard, let’s write fanfic~~ I belatedly realised one of the upcoming chapters was quite a bit longer than I usually aim for and decided to chop it in two. 
> 
> Leave a comment if you enjoyed this chapter! Or if you hated it. Or come say hello on [Tumblr!](https://havendale.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

After that Gabriel talked almost too quickly for him to follow. As if the words were water that had been held back behind a dam, and now the dam had broken. But he got the gist: Gabriel had pulled his last, best trick at the Elysian Fields Hotel, given Lucifer the slip, and – Sam shook his head in disbelief – fled to Monte Carlo and plunged into living the high life. Which he described at length, in lurid detail. A month or so after that, he’d been captured somehow – he didn’t go into detail about _that_ at all – and he’d been Asmodeus’s prisoner ever since.

A pit opened in Sam’s gut. It had been _years._ Years of torture, of humiliation and degradation, of being brought low enough that he was practically human – 

He couldn’t even be angry about Gabriel’s trick at the hotel. Not really. He shoved down his bitterness at the realisation that it hadn’t been some divine intervention at play, or some sort of fluky magical resurrection – that Gabriel had really just left them to deal with Lucifer and Michael on their own. Gabriel hadn’t owed them a damn thing, he told himself. He didn’t have any right to feel betrayed. And even if he did, Gabriel had paid for his choice a thousand times over.

Swallowing hard, he said, “Gabe, man, we – we all thought you were dead. Cas even tried to summon you. _I_ tried. I swear, if we’d known you were alive –”

“You’d have done what, exactly?” said Gabriel. “Did you miss the part where Asmodeus kicked your ass back there? I mean, kudos to you for sheer psychotic enthusiasm, but in a cage fight between the Ambiguously Gay Duo and the Kentucky Fried Marquis de Sade, my money’s on the guy who locked up an archangel.” Sam opened his mouth. “ _Anyway_ ,” said Gabriel, before he could say a word, “I did you a couple favours. We didn’t exchange promise rings. I didn’t expect anybody to storm the castle looking for me.”

His smile was strained. _We would have,_ Sam wanted to say. _If we’d known._ But you couldn’t say things like that to Gabriel. He’d laugh in your face.

“Okay,” he said instead. “But, I mean, you guys – archangels – you’re pretty much walking nuclear weapons.” If they were going to escape, he had to know. “So how’s Asmodeus keeping you locked up in the first place? What _is_ he?”

Gabriel gave a theatrical sigh.

“Well,” he said. “That’s a long story. How about a little show-and-tell?” He offered a hand, pulling Sam to his feet – 

And the lakeshore shimmered away. They were standing in a vast, white-pillared space filled with the pink-lemonade light of sunrise. He recognised the Olympus set from Harryhausen’s _Clash of the Titans,_ and glanced at Gabriel sceptically.

“It’s a representation,” Gabriel said. “Your puny mortal brain would explode if I showed you the real thing.”

“– blasphemy,” somebody said. “I didn’t believe it till I saw for myself.” Sam started. Two people were walking between the pillars. Dressed in white tunics, of course. Trust Gabriel not to miss a detail. He didn’t recognise the guy who’d spoken. But the other one –

“I’m telling you, Mike, it’s a mistake,” said the Gabriel who was dressed like a knockoff Greek god. “He saw Dad playing with the LEGO, figured the spaceship he built wasn’t as cool as everybody said. So now he’s trying to improve it, and, I don’t know, he accidentally set the whole thing on fire. Stupid mistake, sure. But a _mistake_.”

Sam turned to look at Gabriel – the real Gabriel – again.

“Okay, fine,” said Gabriel. “So I jazzed up the dialogue for my memoirs. Sue me.”

“It _isn’t_ a mistake,” snapped Michael. “It’s mockery. Four corrupted souls for four archangels.” He ran his fingers through his hair – a jarringly human gesture. “He isn’t trying to improve the souls of men,” he said. “Don’t delude yourself. He’s building an army. These are his generals. The Princes of Hell.”

Before Sam could say anything the phony Mount Olympus dissolved around them. Cold rain pelted down: the ground under his feet turned to mud. Gabriel had plunged them into the middle of a battlefield. Michael, dressed now in a mud-spattered British uniform of the eighteenth century – not the garish red Sam remembered from the illustrations in his school textbooks, but a dingy rust colour – was standing a little ahead of them, looming over a kneeling prisoner. The prisoner’s face was so swollen and bruised that for a moment Sam couldn’t make out the features. Then he heard the familiar drawl. “– redeem me, huh?”

“I can’t undo what was done to you,” said Michael. “I’m sorry. All I can offer you is the mercy of death. You’ll be at peace. No more sin, no more pain. Just darkness and rest.”

One of Asmodeus’s eyes had been torn out. The other glared up at Michael.

“The hell with your peace,” he said. Something glittered in his hand: a knife, Sam realised. Asmodeus lashed out –

And they were back on the lakeshore. Sam reeled. Gabriel gave him a tight smile. “Nothing like flipping through the old family album, huh?”

Sam hardly heard him. “Princes of Hell,” he said. “So Azazel –”

“Bingo,” said Gabriel. “The only true believer of the bunch, incidentally. The other three gave up on Lucifer centuries ago. They didn’t even come out to play during the Apocalypse. Most people think they’re long dead.”

Sam’s mind was whirling. “Crowley knows about Asmodeus,” he said. Why this particular detail should strike him as important he didn’t know. But he felt an urge to mention it all the same. Maybe it was just that he felt better imagining the two of them as members of a team: working on a strategy, taking into account all the variables. “They struck some kind of deal to leave each other alone.”

“ _Crowley_? The sales guy?”

“He’s, uh – he’s a little more than a sales guy now,” said Sam. “After the Apocalypse he crowned himself King of Hell.”

“And people say there’s no upward mobility these days.”

“What I don’t get,” Sam said, “is how Asmodeus is _doing_ all this. Crossing devil’s traps, coming up with whatever superpowered warding he has on the window. Even Azazel couldn’t do that. So how did he get this powerful?”

Gabriel’s face shuttered. For a sickening moment Sam was sure that this was it: that he was going to snap his fingers and they’d both wake up, back at square one.

Then the lakeshore melted away. This time they weren’t on Mount Olympus, or in the middle of the Revolutionary War. They were in the bedroom of Asmodeus’s cottage. The walls were cleaner, and the light through the window was brighter: the layer of smeary grime hadn’t yet built up on the glass. Gabriel was hunched at Asmodeus’s feet. Asmodeus was doing something to his neck: Sam couldn’t see what.

“There,” he was crooning, “there, just a little more. That’s it.”

Gabriel’s double groaned.

“I don’t get it. What does – what does this mean?” Even as he spoke, part of him suspected, part of him heard, grotesquely, an echo of his own voice, pleading with Ruby, bullying her, coaxing her – but it couldn’t be, he thought. Everything in him recoiled from the idea. “Gabriel, what are you trying to tell me?”

Asmodeus lifted up the syringe. It was more than three-quarters full of silver-blue light. Without hesitating he plunged it into the inside of his elbow. A strange sort of bliss filled his face. Sam’s lip curled. He’d stayed in enough fleabag motels – hell, he’d looked in the mirror often enough – to recognise the expression of a junkie getting his fix.

“Your grace,” he said. “He’s using your grace. _Harvesting_ it.”

Gabriel didn’t respond. His face had taken on the eerie, empty look it usually wore when they were awake. Sam grabbed him by the shoulders.

“We have to get the hell out of here,” he said. “This is – Gabriel, I swear, I can get you out. If you help me –”

But before he could finish speaking he was awake again, lying in the crusted mess of his own blood and vomit. For a lingering second he was still detached from the pain. And then, oh Christ, it hit him – like a freight train ploughing into a sedan. _Oh God, oh God, how is it possible to live through this kind of pain?_ He heaved and gagged, physically sick from sheer agony. Fresh blood dripped from the gash in his mouth onto the floor.

He couldn’t think about Gabriel or Asmodeus any longer. All he could think about was the pain. The only unselfishness of which he was capable was in his frantic mental prayers.

_Oh God oh Cas oh anyone if you’re listening save us, please God, SAVE US –_

* * *

Asmodeus interrogated him only once during the next week. He seemed to have remembered, belatedly, that Sam was both breakable and valuable. Mickey came to clear away the tray and left behind a grey furniture blanket and a set of clothes like they’d given Gabriel. None of his meals were tampered with. There were drugs, but they were in the form of capsules and were dispensed by Elton or Mickey or Coco in little paper cups. “Just painkillers,” Elton said, when Sam feebly tried to push his hand away. “Won’t hurt you. And antibiotics. Some of those cuts are looking pretty gross.”

He let Elton feed him the pills in the end, not because he cared about the possibility of infection – dying would be a relief, at this point – but because he’d have grasped at anything that promised a respite from the pain. _Let them be the good stuff, at least,_ he prayed. And for once his hopes were realised. They were excellent. Probably opiates, he decided later on, judging by the effect on his digestion. He drifted off, warmth washing over him like gentle surf on a beach, and came back to find that he’d skipped over five or six hours – which suited him fine. The less time he spent tethered to his feverish, broken body, the better.

After a few days – or so he guessed, anyway: time was becoming a blur – the pills changed shape and colour. Nothing but Tylenol this time. He felt a moment’s bitter fury, followed by sudden, clear-eyed resignation. The pain had dimmed to a level that was, if still pretty fucking unpleasant, at least endurable. Now Asmodeus needed him sober. Well, you couldn’t question a guy who was constantly nodding off. More importantly, _he_ needed him sober, because if this was how he felt after less than a week –

He knew the warning signs. The mental craving came first, and you could wrestle that down, stamp on it till it gave up. But let it have its way even once and pretty soon it wouldn’t be just your brain clamouring for a fix. And at least this way, he thought with bleak humour, there was no cheating. No “I’ll get around to it tomorrow”. No “But I’ve got it under control, and anyway I’ve earned it”. His jailers dispensed the drugs, and if they wanted him on the wagon, they’d nail him there.

Later in the day, while he was lying down, trying to sleep a little, the door opened. Sam looked up without interest. Elton again. “Asmodeus wants to talk to you,” he said.

“Great,” Sam mumbled. “Can’t wait.”

But it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. He was propped up in one of the dining room chairs instead of being left to sit on the floor, and Asmodeus – though Sam could sense the temper smouldering behind those yellow eyes – talked to him for nearly an hour, coaxing and persuading in the exaggeratedly gentlemanly way he sometimes liked to affect. _Now, Samuel: we’re both reasonable men –_ Like the _Gone with the Wind_ parody on the _Carol Burnett Show._

Elton had been ordered to stay in the room. He stood by politely like an old-fashioned footman and occasionally stepped in to fill the glass of water that he’d put before Sam, or to wipe the blood from his face when Asmodeus – finally losing his temper – slapped him and broke open the scabbing wounds on his cheek.

All in all it was probably the easiest questioning he’d been through since he’d been captured. Which, he reflected later, was probably why Asmodeus hadn’t bought his confession.

It was after the slap that the idea came to him. His face was bleeding a little. His ears were ringing, and his head felt as if it had been packed with cement: maybe it was the effect of the Tylenol, or maybe it was just sheer fatigue and misery. If he’d been in his right mind, he wouldn’t have tried it. There weren’t many things more dangerous than a spur-of-the-moment idea. But at the time it seemed like a chance. A way out. 

“Okay,” he said, hanging his head, keeping his eyes on the floor, “okay. You want to know why I summoned Gabriel? It was a hail Mary.”

“A hail Mary,” Asmodeus repeated.

“My brother’s in the wind. For all I knew a couple of weeks ago, he was dead. You think I wouldn’t try anything – do anything?” He made himself hesitate, as if it were being dragged out of him unwillingly. “We thought Gabriel was dead before, and we were wrong,” he said. “There was a chance he’d – he’d faked his death again. I figured, if anybody might be able to find Dean – to bring him back –”

Asmodeus’s eyes flashed yellow.

“And you expect me to believe that,” he said.

“It’s the truth.”

“The hell it is,” said Asmodeus. “I’m many things, boy, but I’m not stupid.”

He struck Sam again – a blow that seemed to rattle his brains in his skull.

“I ain’t gonna ask you any more questions today,” he said. “I’ve got no patience for being lied to. But I will tell you something. I’ve been keeping an ear to the ground with respect to your brother’s activities.” He leant forward. Twisting the knife. “It’s been long seasons since I heard tell of a monster like that,” he said. “There ain’t _nothing_ he won’t do. The blood he’s spilt –”

“He’s gonna come for me,” said Sam. He wasn’t sure if he believed it or not. It didn’t really matter. He said it because it had to be said. Because to sit in silence, and let Asmodeus’s words sink in, was unbearable. “This whole plan of yours – keeping me as a hostage – it’s stupid. When Dean learns what you did, he’s gonna gut you like a fish. You and your servants.”

“I’ve a suspicion, Samuel, that your brother may not be expecting quite so big a fish as me,” said Asmodeus coolly. “And I can always find new help.”

Distantly he heard a tiny clink of glass. Elton had set down the water jug.

“In any case,” said Asmodeus, “I can cut your throat long before Dean Winchester reaches me. And I’m gonna make sure he knows that. _If_ he comes after me.”

Afterwards, lying on the mattress again – he felt sort of sick: fluish, almost – he felt the craving itching at the back of his mind. At the same time a memory from years ago floated up: Lucifer singing to him in the motel room in Coeur D’Alene. _Wait for the wagon, wait for the wagon. Wait_ _for the wagon and we’ll all take a ri-i-ide –_

But it wasn’t demon blood this time, he told himself, and anyway, he’d beaten that in the end. He could beat whatever Asmodeus threw at him.

* * *

Gabriel had good days and bad days. Most of the time he recognised Sam, and though he hadn’t come near him again, he didn’t flinch away when Sam reached for his hand, or tried to clean the dirt and blood from his face, or put the blanket around his shoulders. But there were times – mostly, though not totally, correlated with the appearance of the demons in the spare bedroom – when he seemed to be locked away inside himself, when nothing Sam said or did could bring the old Gabriel back, and all his efforts accomplished was to drive him into a kind of animal panic.

He didn’t need to eat or drink, but he bled as if he were human, and in the darkness at night Sam heard the faint rasp of his breath. He slept, on and off – sometimes for just a few minutes, sometimes for hours at a time. They shared one dream – a glitzy Christmas party in a glassed-in penthouse somewhere – but as soon as Sam pulled their joined consciousnesses apart Gabriel vanished, leaving Sam to wake up feeling cold all over.

But in spite of his frustration, in spite of the constant dread that bore down on him, the hunger and humiliation and the longing for the drugs that would knock him out, grant him at least a mental escape, he was more optimistic than he had been since he’d been captured. His last little flicker of hope had nearly guttered out like a candle-flame: now it was burning bright. Gabriel was alive, and whatever Asmodeus might believe, he hadn’t succeeded in breaking him completely. Plan C – third time’s the charm, he thought to himself – was starting to take shape in the back of his mind.

He was startled, the first time they took Gabriel downstairs again, by the spasm of rage that went through him. But he couldn’t help it. The thought of Asmodeus touching Gabriel, feeding off his grace, filled his head with bloody pictures: smashing his fist into Asmodeus’s teeth, gouging out his eyes, ripping out hanks of his hair. Gabriel must have sensed something of what he was thinking. He caught Sam’s eye. The expression on his face was of helpless misery. He didn’t have to speak for Sam to know what he was trying to say.

_Don’t. You’ll just make things worse for both of us._

But it didn’t make him feel like any less of a bastard when Gabriel was gone and the door was locked. He sat on the mattress, picking at a flaking scab on his knee, brushing away the flies that landed on his arms and face. _Now Asmodeus is preparing the syringe,_ he imagined. _Now he’s forcing Gabriel to his knees –_ Intellectually he knew it was doing neither of them any good. But his heart insisted that if he couldn’t save Gabriel from what Asmodeus was doing to him, he should at least share some portion of his pain.

 _That’s right, Sammy._ Lucifer again. _You can’t save anybody. But you can suffer. You can suffer_ beautifully _, can’t you?_

Think about something else. Dean. What Asmodeus had said a few days ago in the dining room had disturbed him. What was Crowley making his brother do? Or was Crowley making him do anything? Maybe, Sam thought, maybe there was just nothing of Dean left. There’d been moments before he died when Sam was afraid the Mark had swallowed him whole.

And Cas – Cas was left alone to try to find him, wondering, probably, why Sam wasn’t taking his calls, wouldn’t agree to meet in person. _When he lies dying and you ain’t at his side –_

 _Don’t die,_ he begged mentally, knowing Cas couldn’t possibly hear him, _please, Cas, don’t die. I can’t lose you too. Cut out your grace if you have to._

But he knew Cas wouldn’t do that. Not till he’d managed to bring Dean home.

The sky through the bars was black by the time Mickey brought Gabriel back upstairs and threw him down on the floor. Sam winced. Mickey lingered a moment, looking almost guilty, Sam thought, like a little kid planning to take five bucks from Mom’s purse. Then he brought the heel of his boot down on Gabriel’s outstretched left hand.

Gabriel moaned feebly. Sam started up. “You got a problem?” said Mickey.

He willed his voice to remain steady. “I don’t know,” he said. “You might. If Asmodeus finds out you’ve been roughing up his favourite toy.”

The threat hit its mark. Mickey glared at him, sullenly, and went out. Sam limped over to Gabriel – he was able to walk again, though slowly and painfully – and knelt beside him. Asmodeus must have gotten greedy, Sam thought: the last time Gabriel had been able to stand on his own. This time he could barely open his eyes. His face was damp with sweat, and there was a new long gash on his forehead. 

He picked up Gabriel’s left hand, feeling around the bones with his uninjured fingers. Nothing seemed to be broken, but already there was a reddish mark forming. In a day or two it would be a serious bruise. Still, Mickey might be able to pass it off as an accident.

“We can get out of here,” he said, softly. “I’ve got an idea. The start of an idea, anyway. But you’re gonna have to help me.”

Gabriel didn’t speak. He didn’t even blink.

But it didn’t matter, Sam told himself. He was still alive, deep down. Still himself. Sam had been right after all. Asmodeus could terrorise him into near-catatonia, could drain him of grace till he was all but human, but he couldn’t break him of wanting to escape. The proof, irrefutable and undeniable, was the dreams Gabriel had sent him. They’d been a message. A cry for help. They were a sign that Gabriel hadn’t given up hope.

* * *

He was lying on the floor. He had a muzzy feeling of missing time, and realised he must have lost consciousness: he could remember being hauled downstairs and being made to sit on the floor, and Asmodeus starting to ask the usual questions, but nothing between then and now. A sharp pain like a sewing needle jabbing in and out informed him that he’d put his teeth through his lower lip.

The reprieve was over. Maybe Asmodeus had genuinely wanted him to recover, or maybe he’d been busy – who knew what a Prince of Hell got up to when he wasn’t torturing people in his spare bedroom? – or maybe it was another trick. One more item in the torturer’s toolbox. Pure, sustained terror, without any reprieve, was if nothing else predictable. So break it up: let the prisoner sleep a little, eat a little, all the while dreading when you’ll come for them again. Let their own mind work against them. Above all, give them something to lose. Even Lucifer had understood that. In the Cage –

Better not to remember that. In any case, he was being questioned sometimes twice a day now: the soles of his feet burnt with cigarettes, his head shoved underwater, Asmodeus’s powers brought to bear on him, leaving him gasping and helpless. He thought wistfully of the painkillers – the good stuff – but none were forthcoming. Once – at least it was the kind of trick that could only be used once – he was made to stay awake for what he guessed, by the changing colour of the sky outside the dining room window, was around fifty hours. Every time he was on the verge of slipping into a doze Mickey or Elton shoved him or slapped his face and jarred him awake. By the end he was too dizzy to stand unassisted. His eyes were gritty and stung with pain. _I remember this one,_ he imagined Lucifer whispering. _Good times, right? How long do you think you can take it? Three days? Four?_

Just when he was about to break down in tears from sheer fatigue the door of the dining room opened – and his brother walked in.

“Hey, Sam,” he said, hands in his pockets. “You ready to get out of here?”

“You’re not real,” said Sam, flatly. It was an unusually vivid hallucination, but then sleep deprivation, as he knew full well, did unusual things to the brain.

“I’m real, Sam. Trust me. It’s okay.” His voice was gentle. “Castiel said Gabriel’s here, too,” he said. “That true?”

 _Castiel._ Not Cas. He groaned. He hadn’t believed it was Dean, not really. But even so –

“So you can shapeshift too, huh?” he said.

His brother’s face twisted. Then it melted away. Asmodeus stood in Dean’s place.

“You know, points, uh – points for effort,” said Sam. “You almost had me going.” But the voice, he realised now, had been subtly wrong, and so had the features: Asmodeus must have been mimicking the photos and messages saved on Sam’s phone. Presumably he’d hoped that Sam would be too exhausted to realise the difference. His disappointment curdled into spite. “Who’s it gonna be next time? Scarlett Johansson?”

Which earned him another blow, predictably.

The little he could remember of this last session had been less creative, by comparison, though more brutal. It was rare that Asmodeus actually caused him to lose consciousness – unsurprisingly, since anything that could knock a person out stood a fair chance of inflicting permanent brain damage. Sam felt cautiously over his skull with his good fingers. There was no wetness of blood, but there was a tender bruise forming over his left temple. In the corner of the room Gabriel was watching him, his face creased with concern.

“I’m okay,” Sam said, quietly. “It’s okay.”

At some point he drifted off, and so did Gabriel. They were walking together through the sun-drenched streets of a city he didn’t recognise – past little stone houses with shuttered windows, and fountains, and walled gardens from which drifted the smell of lemon trees. He was afraid to speak – sure that if he did Gabriel would vanish again. The walk seemed to go on for a long time. At last Gabriel broke the silence. “So,” he said. “You’re planning another great escape.”

 _Careful. Easy does it._ “That’s the idea,” said Sam.

“And you want my help.”

“I want you to come with. That’s what _you_ want, isn’t it? To get out of here?” Gabriel’s gaze was fixed on the dusty street. “You helped me before,” Sam said. Squashing down, again, the little flare of betrayal: the feeling that Gabriel could have done more, if he’d been inclined. “Against Lucifer.”

Gabriel gave a humourless smile. “And what did that get me, huh?”

“Well, it got you Monte Carlo. For a while.”

“You’re a riot. But, uh, in case you missed it, kiddo – the whole power-and-glory deal? I’m not _that_ anymore. Truth is, I was a wreck even before Asmodeus got his claws into me.” Sam frowned. Gabriel had looked all right at the hotel, he thought. “Look,” said Gabriel, in his explaining-cosmic-wonders-to-idiots tone. “Making a copy that’d fool you and Dean – that’s amateur hour stuff. Easy-peasy. Fooling Lucy – not so easy. I had to pour enough grace into the copy to make him think it was the real McCoy.”

“And when he killed what he thought was you –” said Sam, catching on.

“I lost a big chunk of grace. I mean, I lived, obviously, but I was running on backup power by the time I got out of there.”

They’d come to the town square. At the centre was a large, tiered fountain, with stone steps around it. He sat down, and after a moment Gabriel perched on the steps beside him. “Where is everyone?” he said, giving voice to the thought that had been pestering him for the past while. The square, like the rest of the town, was deserted. He’d had a glimpse of two women carrying firewood in a back street, but that was all.

“It’s a plague year. They’re in the country. The ones who could get away, anyway. The rest are holed up at home.” Gabriel trailed his hand in the water. He added, “If it makes you feel better, this is the last day anyone died here.”

“You mean –” Gabriel gave him a who-me? look. “You gave them a miracle.”

“They thought it came from the Virgin. I don’t get no respect,” said Gabriel, with what Sam thought to himself was a surprisingly good Rodney Dangerfield impression. Then he shrugged. “What can I say? I was on vacation. And I’m not good with sick people.”

A sudden rush of warmth came over Sam. He would’ve liked to have put his arm around Gabriel. Instead he made himself sit up straight. Something _thudded_ in the distance. Some kind of machinery? “I know Asmodeus hurt you,” he said. Gabriel didn’t say anything. “I know you’re not as strong as you were. You don’t have to be. Okay? You just have to trust me. I can get you out of here – get us both out of here.”

 _Thud,_ again. Closer this time.

“I swear, Gabriel –”

 _Thud._ He got to his feet, scanning the empty square – and behind him Gabriel, his voice strained, said, “Somebody’s coming _._ You’re waking up –”

And he was. He opened his eyes – wincing at the throbbing in his head – and _thud_ went Mickey’s boots on the landing, and the door creaked open. He was bringing in the tray.

He spent the rest of the day, whenever he could be sure they wouldn’t be overheard, trying to reason with Gabriel. But it was no good. The emptiness had come back into his eyes: whatever Sam said, he didn’t seem to hear. At times it felt almost like a kind of a puzzle: find the right thing to say, the right button to push, and the box springs open and Gabriel comes out and snaps his fingers and teleports you both to the Bunker.

He knew he was being both unrealistic and unfair. You didn’t get over what Gabriel had gone through just because somebody asked you nicely. But –

 _For God’s sake,_ he thought, _you want to escape. I know you do. Why won’t you at least hear me out?_

* * *

The day after that, he lost patience. Asmodeus had been in a punishingly sadistic mood again, and in desperation while he lay heaving on the floor he’d begun repeating the lie he’d invented: that he’d tried summoning Gabriel in a hopeless last-ditch effort to save his brother. Gradually he became aware that Asmodeus was standing over him, looking down in disgust.

He expected to be taken upstairs at that point. _Playtime’s over._ But Asmodeus didn’t call for Coco, who Sam knew was waiting outside the door. Instead he hauled Sam to his feet and deposited him in one of the chairs. He slumped down, incapable of holding his head up. All he wanted was to lie down and sleep, or to be given something to knock him out. To be forced to sit up seemed somehow crueller than anything Asmodeus had done to him in the previous hour.

Asmodeus drew up another chair and sat down facing him. Sam recoiled, but a smile came over Asmodeus’s face. “I ain’t gonna hurt you, boy,” he said. “I want you to hear something, that’s all.”

He had something in his hand. It was his own phone, he realised. Asmodeus unlocked it – _of course: he’s a shapeshifter, he can mimic fingerprints too –_ and held it towards him.

“Sam,” rasped Cas, and Sam’s heart seemed to stop in his chest. “Sam, I – I hope you’re all right. I – I called you because, I, uh – I’m returning to the Bunker. Hannah’s agreed to – to assist me in getting there. I –” He broke off into a painful-sounding cough. “I wish I could see you again. We haven’t talked much since – since you were in Arkansas. I wish you’d at least tell me where you are.” He hesitated a moment. “I’m going to give this phone to Hannah in case you need to reach her,” he said. “If – Sam, tell Dean that I –”

But he had to stop again to cough.

“Never mind,” said Cas. “It’s not important. Goodbye, my friend. I love you.”

Sam sat frozen. _He’s going back there to die._ His heart thudded. _Cas, please –_

“It’s a lie,” he said. “Another trick.”

But even as he spoke he knew it wasn’t true. It was Cas’s voice he’d heard.

“It’s no lie,” said Asmodeus. “Not this time.”

“You son of a bitch. Why did you make me listen to that?”

“Because, Samuel, I’m gonna make you an offer.” Asmodeus slipped the phone away into his jacket. “To be frank,” he said, “it’s occurred to me to wonder just how much that brother of yours cares for you. He certainly don’t seem to be searching for you with any great diligence. Matter of fact, I don’t know’s he’s even noticed you’re gone. Which – no offence to you – rather reduces your value as a bargaining chip. So I’m prepared to offer you a deal.” He was going full bore with the syrupy gentleman-of-the-Old-South act: Sam almost expected him to whip out a mint julep. “You tell me what you know about Gabriel,” he said, “tell me who else knows he’s alive, and you can go free. Hunt your brother, be with your friend while he dies. All you gotta do is tell me the truth.”

“Yeah. Like hell. You’re not gonna let me go.”

“You ain’t gonna know unless you take the deal, are you? Ain’t it worth the chance of being at your friend’s side when he breathes his last?”

_Cas, I’m sorry. Cas –_

But Cas wasn’t going to die. They’d get out before it came to that. They had to.

“I already told you,” he said to Asmodeus, flatly.

He expected a blow. Instead Asmodeus smiled at him.

“Hunters, huh,” he said. “You know, I don’t understand your kind. See, I’ve had dealings with hunters now and then. Cost of living topside. You claim to be – to be the protectors. The white knights. And here you are, thinking you and Gabriel are gonna get out of here somehow and find your brother – and you don’t give a damn what happens to anybody else. Not even that poor broken angel of yours.” His voice had dropped to a sort of croon. “I know you, Samuel,” he said. “I know what kind of man you are. I know all about what you did to that girl Selena. Deep down, you don’t care who you hurt, who you sacrifice, as long as you get what you want.”

Sam sank his teeth into the inside of his cheek. _It doesn’t matter,_ he told himself, _it’s not true, none of it’s true._ But those were just words. The real truth sat heavy in his gut, impossible to ignore. _Please don’t, please don’t –!_

Like twisting his nails into a scab, he let himself picture Cas, sick and feverish, wandering the halls of the Bunker. Retreating, eventually, to one of the bedrooms. Picking up his silent phone, just in case. Putting it down again.

_I wish you’d at least tell me where you are._

_I’m going to give this phone to Hannah._

Sam’s breath caught.

Not just a goodbye, he realised. A message.

_I wish you’d at least tell me where you are._

All at once he understood. All the time he’d been talking with Asmodeus, Cas had never once let anything slip about Sam’s dreams. Somehow, Asmodeus had tripped up and Cas, even if he didn’t quite understand what had happened, knew that it wasn’t Sam on the line. And he’d sent a message.

_I can’t hear your prayers, Sam. You’ll have to find another way. Tell me where you are. If I can’t help you, Hannah will._

He was still dying. Still saying goodbye. That part hadn’t been in code.

But still –

_It doesn’t matter. I’m going to get out of here, get back to Cas. I’m going to find Dean and bring him home._

_And I’m going to make Gabriel see reason._

* * *

They brought him back upstairs eventually. He was hurting badly, but he wasn’t so out of it that he couldn’t gulp down the water they’d left him – not drugged, thank God – and pull himself onto the mattress. Gabriel was huddled in the corner again, his breathing raspy, his head resting on his folded arms. Mingled pity and frustration shot through Sam. He lay with his eyes shut, trying to will himself asleep. Besides the pain, a thousand tiny annoyances seemed to swell up to gargantuan size. The lice crawling through his clothes and his hair. The aching emptiness in his gut. The trickle of blood down the right side of his head, over his ear. He tried focussing on a mental picture of the silent town square, tinged gold in the evening light, but every time after a second or two it melted away.

And then, at last, he found himself elsewhere.

* * *

“Cas can’t hear me if I pray to him,” he said. They were walking together. It was a rainy night, and the lights of Times Square were a glittering smear on the edge of his vision. Not Times Square as he personally remembered it – packed with tourists and upscale shops – but the freaky, grimy, _slimy_ Times Square he’d only ever seen in old movies. They passed a marquee inviting them to view live nude girls for 25 cents. Gabriel must have loved New York back in the day, Sam thought. Before they’d cleaned it up.

“Please tell me you haven’t been spending all this time working _that_ out,” said Gabriel. “The kind of warding Asmodeus’s got up – it’s like a scrambler for any kind of psychic communication. Telepathy, angel radio, prayer – all of it.”

“Right,” said Sam, ignoring the jibe. “But it’s not impenetrable.”

“Neither is the Hoover Dam if you fire a nuclear warhead at it.”

“Funny you say that,” Sam said. “’Cause that’s, uh – that’s pretty much what I’m planning on doing.”

By the time he’d finished explaining, Gabriel’s mouth was set in a thin line. “I swear,” he said, “it’s like you’re allergic to admitting defeat. You don’t have a hope in hell of pulling this off. Even if I could do it – and let me tell you, that’s a big _if_ – Asmodeus is gonna feel it the moment I pierce the warding. He’s gonna go to ground, take us with him, and then – the past couple of weeks? They’re gonna feel like a damn picnic.”

Sam bit down on his urge to snap back.

“It’s the best chance we’ve got,” he said. “We stay here, Asmodeus is gonna keep on bleeding you. Right now you’ve still got a little bit of juice left. And sure, maybe it is a hell of a chance, but – but I’m willing to risk it.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not,” said Gabriel. “Face facts. There’s no way out of here.”

“Gabriel, _please._ We can do it. _”_ He heard his voice rising, but he couldn’t seem to help it. “You called for help,” he said. “Those dreams. Some part of you still believes you can escape. _That’s_ a fact.”

Gabriel opened his mouth, then shut it without speaking. He looked pale and grim – almost guilty, Sam thought. But what did he have to feel guilty for? Then Times Square vanished around them. They were somewhere else. A snowy field under a black sky. Sam shivered. He hadn’t thought about this dream in a long time. 

“What is this?” he said, softly. “Why did you bring me here?”

Gabriel gestured. He saw himself, about two hundred yards away, on his knees, pleading with the Gabriel of four years ago. Refusing to say yes. Between one blink of an eye and the next, Lucifer appeared, wearing his old vessel.

“– territorial, much?” he heard, echoing over the snow.

He knew what was going to happen – but it was like knowing a firecracker was about to explode. He still flinched when Lucifer lashed out. The Gabriel of four years ago screamed as he was ripped out of Sam’s head. And just as before Sam had a blurry impression of wings –

But now he saw something different. Something being torn away, bright as stardust, spattering across the snow.

“Wait, are you –” He turned to Gabriel – the real Gabriel. “That’s _you_ , isn’t it?” he said. “You left behind some kind of – of residue. Gabriel, are you saying that there’s part of _you_ in my head?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have our winner,” said Gabriel. There was no humour beneath the words. “Look,” he said, “I didn’t plan on it. Dream-walking takes grace. Lucy 86’d me from your head, I hung on a little too hard, an itty-bitty sliver of my grace got left behind. Like a – a fingerprint smeared on glass. No biggie.”

“No big – Gabriel, I’ve had Cas extract grace from me since then. I’ve been _possessed_. Lucifer, Gadreel, Crowley – I mean, how did they not notice?”

“Wow. Gadreel? Really? Also, _somebody’s_ milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.” The smile slipped away. “They wouldn’t notice unless they knew what to look for,” he said. “Like I said, it was a tiny part. Lucy probably saw it, but I doubt he cared. And you couldn’t extract it. It’s – well, it’s basically fused to your soul. But, hey! No harm done.”

Was that the reason for his strange, guilty expression? Was he just sorry for accidentally invading Sam’s mind? But even with the memory of Gadreel festering, Sam couldn’t find it in himself to be angry. Startled, sure – but it wasn’t as if Gabriel had meant to do it, and a tiny sliver of grace left behind accidentally hardly compared with being possessed. And the remembered regret that wasn’t his own **–** he’d suspected, and now he knew. “You didn’t want to leave me alone with Lucifer,” he said. “You were scared of what he’d do to me.”

Gabriel shifted on his feet. “I wanted you to come quietly,” he said. “Not whatever he had planned.”

Sam nodded. “And that – that fingerprint,” he said, “it formed a – a kind of link between us, right? And even the warding couldn’t sever it.”

“Not so much a link. More like propping open a window. Which also means, lucky you, you get access to the highlight reel.”

Things were clicking into place. “These dreams – they’re your memories.” He already knew that much. “You can – what, choose you want to see?”

Gabriel sighed.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve been alive since Dad kindled the fires of the stars. And all that time, all those billions of years, I never once slept. Until a few weeks ago.” He said, slowly, “Asmodeus’s been greedier than usual. Taking more than he used to.”

 _Crowley,_ thought Sam. _He’s scared of what Crowley might be planning. Trying to boost his powers, just in case._ Out loud he said, “And it’s – it’s affecting you. So now you’re sleeping.”

“Sleeping, bleeding, et cetera,” Gabriel agreed. “At some point I’m gonna need to start eating. Won’t that be fun. Anyway, point is – angels don’t dream.” He bit at the edge of his thumbnail. “Even if we’re seven-eighths of the way to fallen, we can’t _._ Not like people. Missing some kind of spark, I guess. Now that I’m reduced to _this,_ my brain’s just – flipping through the Rolodex. But I can control them. Kind of. Make sure they’re good memories, anyway.”

“Crawford Hall is a good memory for you?”

“I had fun. I don’t know about you two.” But the joke fell flat. His eyes, haunted and miserable, seemed to burn into Sam’s soul. “Here’s the thing, Sam,” he said. “When I said it was a tiny piece, I meant it. I didn’t even realise it was missing till you showed up here and started talking about us sharing dreams. Then I started putting two and two together.

“See, this connection we have – I can’t sense you. I’m not gonna start dreaming about roleplaying as dime-store Mulder and Scully, or whatever. Think of it like – like there’s two rooms, okay? With an open door between them. First room – that’s your head – has an iPod in it. Second room has a rock band. Second room drowns out the first. Doesn’t go the other way.” He was talking a mile a minute: as if he was trying to put a shield of words between himself and whatever point he was leading up to. “Truth is,” he said, “I wasn’t trying to communicate with you. _I didn’t even know you could hear me._ I never planned to start dreaming. And once I did, I – I was just trying to forget. Pretend I was somewhere else. For a little while.”

Sam reeled as if he’d been kicked in the gut.

“No,” he said. “No, that’s –”

“I’m sorry, Sam,” said Gabriel, mercilessly. “But it’s the truth.”

 _No. No, it can’t be. You have to be lying. Playing a trick. You have to want to escape. Even if you don’t believe we can do it, you have to_ want _to. Because – because if I don’t have somebody to fight for, I’m gonna break completely._

“Okay,” he said. “Okay – so it was an accident.” He hated the desperate note in his own voice, but he couldn’t help it. “We can still get out of here.”

Gabriel rounded on him – suddenly, viciously furious.

“You think I didn’t try?” he spat. “Every time – _every_ time – it only ever made things worse. What he did to me – you can’t imagine. So here’s my advice. Give up. Spare yourself at least a little pain.” As quickly as it had come on, the fury dissipated. “You can’t save me, Sam,” he said. His voice was dead. “You can’t even save yourself. There’s no ending here where you win. Just let it go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Lucifer sings is ["The Union Wagon,"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8M5_BG5ou4) the 1856 campaign song of Millard Fillmore. It doesn't actually have anything to do with going on the wagon, but it is unbelievably catchy.
> 
> Liked this chapter? Hated it? Want to talk about 19th-century U.S. election songs? Leave a comment!


	5. Chapter 5

It was about three weeks later, by his guess, that Asmodeus finally changed his mind about the story he’d cooked up. Despite his best efforts Sam hadn’t managed to keep track of the days. Even now that he was being questioned only once or twice a week, Asmodeus’s servants woke him at random – sometimes rousing him after less than half an hour of sleep, sometimes leaving him for ten or twelve hours at a time – and the intervals between his meals were irregular. He had glimpses of green leaves through the window, which showed that it was still summer, but he couldn’t have said if it was June or July or even early August.

Mostly he marked the passing of time by the changes in his own body. His right arm was nearly paralysed. He could move the fingers a little, but anything else sent shooting pain from his shoulder down to his wrist. He wondered what kind of surgery it would take to restore proper function to his shoulder – if it would even be possible after Asmodeus had wrenched it, shoved it, twisted it back it and forth. His broken fingers had mostly healed, but without splints the bones were grotesquely crooked. And he’d lost weight: his knees and elbows protruded weirdly, and so did his hipbones. Most of the time the food was fine to eat – but only most of the time. He ate only when his hunger was too much to stand. He was constantly dizzy, and his head ached as if he was suffering from a never-ending hangover. On the days he was able to walk he pulled himself to his feet and made himself circle the room, one slow, unsteady step at a time, keeping his good hand on the wall for balance, till he was too exhausted to stand.

He thought all the time of bathing: of hot showers, swimming pools, jacuzzi tubs. He’d had an idea that with time you’d learn to endure the filth, or at least stop noticing it, the way people living in big cities unconsciously blocked out traffic noise. But there were some things you couldn’t get used to. His hair and clothes stank of old sweat and were infested with lice, a gummy film coated his teeth, and the skin on his arms and feet was inflamed with an itching red rash. Every so often his will broke and he dug his fingernails into his skin and it wept and bled, leaving wounds that oozed and crusted over and then broke open again. Sometimes he thought the itching was a worse torture than anything else Asmodeus inflicted on him. Worse even than being beaten, or being left sobbing from Asmodeus’s powers, was being left tied to a chair for four or five hours, his fingers jerking involuntarily while he nearly screamed from not being able to scratch.

While he dozed on the mattress or in the corner of the room, he imagined himself waking up in hospital, with Dean at his side – _Heya, Sammy: you sit tight, there’s this cute nurse I want you to meet –_ or in the Bunker, in his own bed, with Cas bending over him – _Sam, it’s all right, I’ve already healed the worst of the damage –_ and he was whole again, himself again, not filthy and sick and starving, not battered past recognition. He wondered what Dean was doing – where he was. He wondered whether Cas was still alive. Whether, if he did somehow manage to escape, he’d have anything left to go back to. Two or three times he jolted awake and tried, uselessly, to fend off the demon who’d come to bring him food or water, imagining that it was Crowley, holding out a cup of demon’s blood, or Dean, his eyes black, the First Blade in his hand. Once – thank God it was only once – he started out of a sort of stupor, and saw the bars of the Cage around him.

He was still dreaming, and so was Gabriel – but their shared dreams weren’t any kind of reprieve. Most of the time Gabriel wouldn’t speak to him. Sam pleaded with him, tried to reason with him, screamed at him, all the while knowing it wouldn’t do any good. Gabriel looked at him sadly, not saying a word, or vanished and left him to wake up alone.

_You goddamn coward –_

For the most part, when he was awake, he tended to Gabriel mechanically. Covering him with the blanket when they brought him back shivering and white-faced. Cleaning the fresh cuts and gashes if there was any water available. When he thought of Dean and Cas, Sam could have cheerfully slapped him. But there were other times – he couldn’t have said what brought on the change in his moods – when he was seized by a weird, desperate tenderness, and sat silently holding Gabriel’s hand, feeling the intermittent flutter of his pulse. 

“How much lower can you sink, huh?” purred Asmodeus. He was eating chunks of melon with a little silver fork. Mickey had brought in lunch a while ago: now it was time for dessert. “Look at you. You’re more wretched than the things that crawl the earth.”

_You did this to me. What does that make you?_

But he bit his tongue. It wasn’t submission, he told himself: it was practicality. There was only so much you could take, and he felt it in his bones, coming off what Asmodeus had already done to him this afternoon, that he simply couldn’t take any more punishment. Not today. You weren’t a coward just because you knew when to quit.

_Sure, Sam. You keep telling yourself that._

“But I’ll tell you something.” Asmodeus took a bite. Chewed. “I don’t change my mind often,” he said. “But I’ve been talking with your friend Castiel. I’m inclined to believe you.”

“You –”

“About summoning Gabriel,” said Asmodeus. He laughed. “Some hail Mary, huh? You begged the universe for a lifeline, and it delivered you into my hands.”

He swallowed another piece of melon. Sam was speechless. It was all he could do to force his face not to betray him.

Finally he said, as he knew Asmodeus meant him to, “Then why are you still doing this?”

Because – and that was what he couldn’t understand – the questions hadn’t ended. It was just that Asmodeus had apparently stopped caring about the answers.

Asmodeus studied him.

“When I first brought Gabriel here,” he said, “he fought like hell. But everyone breaks in the end, Samuel. He didn’t understand that, but I did. And you do, don’t you?” He wiped the juice from his mouth with his napkin. “I know you do,” he said. “You and me, we had the same teacher.”

Sam’s eyes snapped to the scars on his face. Asmodeus saw. He nodded.

“He gave me these,” he said, tracing them with a fingertip. “Back in the days of the Rebellion, I defied him. I disobeyed his will. And he punished me for it. I’d never known pain like that. I was begging for his forgiveness before he was halfway finished with me. What he did,” Asmodeus said, “it wasn’t purely a question of punishment. He _enjoyed_ it.

“No man nor demon ever suffered as the Morning Star suffered. That was the first time I saw him smile. And I began to understand. Our kind – we can’t save anybody, or help anybody. All we can do is spread our pain around.” Did he mean demons, Sam wondered, or was he including Sam himself? “You tell yourself you’re dispensing punishment, or getting information, or –”

_Or stealing grace?_

“And that’s true, of course, but it ain’t the whole truth. Fact is,” said Asmodeus, “we’d do it even if there wasn’t a reason. ‘Cause it’s the only solace we’re ever gonna get.”

At the same time, a memory resurfacing: _You beat a dog often enough and it’ll snap at anybody who comes near it._

Asmodeus said, “You ain’t never seen Gabriel, have you? Really seen him.”

“No.”

“When they brought him to me,” Asmodeus said, almost dreamily, “I could hardly stand even to look at him. I’d seen Lucifer’s face before, his true face, but this – this was different. All that _light_. A thousand eyes made out of fire, all fixed on me. The beauty of it, the terror – you can’t imagine it.” He was smiling – a satisfied smile, like the cat who got the cream. “Only – I knew I had him. His friends’d already drained him of grace.”

Sam thought, _Friends? Which friends?_ But he was too caught up in what Asmodeus was saying to pursue the thought.

“He could bluster all he wanted,” said Asmodeus. “He wasn’t never getting free.” The silver fork was in his hand again. He stood and came over to Sam, and very gently he raised it to Sam’s eye. Sam’s breath came shallowly. The tines were, he guessed, with the kind of sick academic interest that he’d sometimes felt in his own broken bones and infected scrapes, no more than an eighth of an inch from the surface of his eyeball. “I made him scream,” Asmodeus said. “I made him _beg_. And when I’d had enough of listening to him, I sewed up his vessel’s mouth. Little by little, I broke him. And now – now I could leave the door open and he wouldn’t stir an inch. He’s _mine._ ”

He lowered the fork. A ragged sigh escaped Sam.

“That’s why I’m doing this to you,” he said. He stood close enough still that his breath was warm on Sam’s lips. “You understand. Deep down, it’s why you did what you did to that girl in El Dorado.”

“Solace,” said Sam. Asmodeus nodded. Red hatred filled him. Before he could think better of it, he drew his head back and spat in Asmodeus’s face. “Fuck you,” he said. “Fuck you, you pretentious, sadistic asshole.”

It was the best he’d felt in days.

But it didn’t matter a few minutes later. As soon as the pain began, nothing mattered: not Asmodeus, not Sam himself. As he screamed, he tried – he always tried – to split his mind from his body, or else – please God – to fall unconscious. _I’m not here, I’m not here. This isn’t happening._ But it was no use. He was on the floor, gazing at a patch on the wall where the paint had begun to peel, letting it fill up his vision, when Asmodeus strode over and drove his foot into his right shoulder.

* * *

“Leave me alone,” he slurred. “Gabriel –”

He’d been half-conscious when they hauled him through the door and dumped him on the mattress, and it was a while before he realised that Gabriel was bending over him, trying to rouse him. _What the hell do you care if I’m dead,_ Sam thought. Then something cold dripped onto his face. He blinked water from his eyes. _Great,_ he thought. _You won’t do a damn thing to get us out of here, but you’ll wash my face. Just great._

“Gabriel,” he said, tiredly, “if – if you’re not gonna help me – just leave me alone.”

Or maybe he’d only thought it. Gabriel didn’t seem to hear. He dipped his sleeve in the water jug again and went on washing the blood from Sam’s face.

Sometime later, Sam woke from an uneasy sleep and lay staring at the ceiling. An ugly memory was stirring in the back of his mind – of shaking and sweating in Bobby’s panic room, right before Cas had let him out, and looking at the back of his hand and seeing with a shock of horror that his veins were black and engorged, full of poison instead of blood. Only a hallucination. But he’d never forgotten.

 _But it wasn’t the blood, was it,_ said Lucifer. _There was poison in you from Day One, Sammy. Something rotten in Denmark. Same kind of poison that’s inside Kentucky Fried._

_I’m nothing like him._

_Sure, pal,_ said Lucifer. In his mind’s eye Sam pictured him slouched against the wall, sneering. _I know what you’re gonna say. You didn’t want_ _to kill the bitch. But, uh – end of the day, the blood’s still on your hands. Same as poor little Cindy McKellan. Remember_ her? _Or what’s his name – Jeffrey, wasn’t it?_ Lucifer’s voice – or maybe it was just the voice of his own conscience – dropped. _You know, Sam – normal people, when circumstances force them to make hard choices, they take the opportunity for a little self-reflection. Ask themselves whether they’re on the right track. But you – any time the universe puts a knife in your hand, you just can’t wait to use it, can you?_ He gave Sam a vicious smile. _Just making an observation, bunk buddy._

* * *

The sun set, rose again, strengthened, made a long rectangle of gold light on the bare floorboards, set again. Mickey brought in a jug of water and some soup. A nasty thought crept into his brain: maybe this was it. Maybe Asmodeus meant to let him rot up here, forgotten, unless and until Crowley made his move. _Not much solace in this,_ he thought, a little crazily. _It’s seeing me in pain that does it for you, isn’t it?_ But the sun set again and nobody had come to take him downstairs. Gabriel had been taken away once, and came back in okay shape. He was awake for the most part, sitting quietly, sometimes looking up at the window.

And then, late in the evening of the fourth day, when he’d just about begun to believe that no one was going to come for him, the lock clicked open and Asmodeus appeared in the doorway. He’d hardly taken a step into the room before Sam realised, with a chill, that something was wrong. Asmodeus’s face was pale and his movements were strangely jerky – as if he’d forgotten how to imitate how humans carried themselves, or just didn’t care. He slammed the door shut behind him. He seemed seven feet tall, ten feet, a giant with eyes of burning yellow. Gabriel had pressed himself into his corner. His head was bowed, his hands moving up and down his arms, tearing at his skin.

But Asmodeus didn’t even glance at him. He moved towards Sam. Very softly, he said, “You’ve been keeping secrets from me, Samuel.”

 _No,_ thought Sam, not with any real fear or dread, but with no feeling at all, merely flat denial, because the alternative was too horrible to begin to wrap his mind around, _no._

Asmodeus stood over him. “You’re a smart man,” he said. His voice suddenly rose. “So why’d you do something as _stupid_ as try to conspire against me? You think I don’t know what happens in my own house? There ain’t a rat that moves in these walls that I don’t know about.”

 _No. No, you can’t have found out about the dreams. You_ can’t _. After everything I went through –_

“Your friend’s dead,” said Asmodeus – and Sam froze. _What?_ “I pulled his guts out myself. But he told me all about your little scheme. Calling your brother, huh? You really thought he was gonna – what – come charging in here and save you? Huh?”

Sam’s brain, which had been caught in an infinite loop of mindless, helpless denial, stuttered back to understanding. _Elton,_ he thought. He still didn’t know the demon’s name. _He did it after all. He contacted Dean._ But why –? _Of course he didn’t tell me. What you don’t know, you can’t give up under torture._

It had been a smart move. But Elton had slipped up somehow, even so. And now he was dead. Sam didn’t delude himself that Elton had given a damn about him, or even been capable of human feeling. He remembered the look on Elton’s face when Asmodeus had talked about finding new help. Caught between the wrath of Heaven and the vengeance of a Knight of Hell. He understood what that look meant – what Asmodeus had, at least temporarily, missed. _If I’m screwed either way, I might as well fuck you over, too._ But even if Elton had been purely out for himself, he’d been an ally, if nothing else. Sam held still. Willed his face not to show anything.

“But as they say,” said Asmodeus, the good-ol’-boy amiability returning with disconcerting suddenness, “in all things there is a silver lining. You see, after I disposed of our mutual friend, I called your brother myself. To, uh, clarify what might have been discussed.” He smiled, showing teeth. “You want to know what he told me?”

_Whatever he says, he’s lying. Demons lie._

“Your brother don’t give a damn about you. Oh, he was spitting hellfire at me, said he’d kill me if I laid hands on you – but that wasn’t anything to do with _you._ Far as I can tell, he just don’t like other people playing with his toys. But we came to an agreement in the end. Pursuant to which,” said Asmodeus, “I’m gonna give you back to him.”

He waited.

“Well,” he said, “ain’t you pleased, son?”

Sam wet his lips. Summoned the nerve to speak. He said, “What’s the catch?”

More teeth. Asmodeus’s eyes flickered.

“I told you before, boy,” he said, “I ain’t lived this long without learning to seize an opportunity when it comes my way. You remember the story of the Trojan Horse?”

A sick feeling began to take root in Sam’s stomach.

“It ain’t often you’re invited to send a spy into the enemy camp,” said Asmodeus. “So to speak. So I’m gonna take control of your mind after all. And then I’m gonna send you to your brother. Oh, you’re gonna be a little bit worse for wear.” _Your brother might not like it if I hand you over a drooling vegetable._ “But I warned your brother there might be some damage,” as if they were discussing the sale of a used car, “and he’s willing to overlook that. More importantly, you’ll still be able to talk, after a fashion. And to listen. We’ll give it a week, maybe two – and then you’ll gonna call me up and tell me every last little thing about him and Crowley. Whether this new Knight of Hell’s as powerful as people say. What Crowley’s planning to do with him. You get the picture.”

He knelt down next to Sam. Something wet ran down Sam’s cheek. With mild self-disgust, he realised he was crying. _Aw, Sammy, it’s okay,_ Lucifer whispered. _Chin up. It’ll be just like the good old days. You walking and talking and somebody else in the driver’s seat. Somebody else inside you._ Asmodeus trailed his fingers over Sam’s face.

“Or,” he said, “you can go of your own free will.”

And he stood and crossed the room and rapped on the door. Coco came in. She handed something to Asmodeus: a knife, Sam realised. Long and narrow, with a plain edge. Made for carving meat. The thunder of his heart seemed to be the only sound in the room. Coco pulled him to his feet, and then – then Asmodeus was standing over Gabriel, and he was speaking again, his eyes strangely bright, his voice low and coaxing. 

“He was your friend, once, wasn’t he?” he said to Sam. “Even if he ain’t any use to you now. He told me all about what he did for you at that hotel. That was a long time ago, but I remember. You wouldn’t have tried summoning him to save your brother if part of you didn’t think fondly of him. So –” He ran his hand over Gabriel’s filthy hair. Gabriel shivered. “So when you take the knife to him,” he said, “there won’t be any coming back from that. Will there, son?”

“You want information about Dean,” said Sam. “You let me go, what the hell makes you think I’m gonna spy on him for you?”

“Because I _know_ you, Samuel,” Asmodeus said. “You’ll walk out of here, still master of your own mind. But your brother – well, Dean Winchester ain’t what he was. And your friend Castiel – he ain’t gonna be waiting to meet you. They’re gone. All you’ve got left is yourself. And when you’re done here, I don’t think you’re gonna want to spend much time in your own company. But then, then, you’ll think of me,” said Asmodeus, “and you’ll remember what I told you. About solace. I can give you that. And _that’s_ why you’ll do what I ask, son. Why you’ll come back to me, in the end.”

_I could leave the door open and he wouldn’t stir an inch._

“It ain’t such a great deal to ask,” said Asmodeus. “I ain’t ordering you to kill him. Matter of fact, I need him mostly intact, so I’d prefer you didn’t do any lasting damage. I’ll even give you instructions, if you like.” He held out the knife. “You’re halfway there already,” he said. “It ain’t so much farther to fall.” 

The fingers of Sam’s left hand closed on the hilt. The knife was heavy and cold. He didn’t move. He was detached from his own body: incapable of taking a step forward even if he’d wanted to.

“I told you,” Asmodeus said softly, “when this was over, I was gonna own you. And I will. It’s up to you what form that takes. Go on, son.”

Gabriel’s eyes were fixed on the knife. He was frozen in place – like a rabbit, Sam thought. He felt a distant sort of pity, which seemed to have nothing to do with what was actually happening. His brain was filled with other things. The remembered misery of begging Gabriel, pleading with him, trying to find the magic words that would make him listen. _If you’d just helped me, listened to me, it wouldn’t have come to this. We’d have been free by now._ And the older, deeper resentment of Gabriel’s betrayal – why call it anything but what it was? – at the Elysian Fields Hotel. And above all, the memory of the fruitless, hopeless weeks on the road, of his miserable phone calls with Cas, and the note on the bed – _Sammy, let me go._ If he never got out of here, or if whatever got out wasn’t _him_ any longer, it would be the end for his brother, too.

_Any time the universe puts a knife in your hand, you just can’t wait to use it, can you._

_Please don’t –!_

He came back to himself, heard his pulse thumping in his ears, felt his heart beating in his chest and the sting of drying tears on his face. About three or four seconds had passed. He spun on his foot – adrenaline lending him strength – and slashed at Asmodeus’s throat.

Asmodeus cried out. Blood poured down and soaked the collar of his shirt, the knot of his tie. Mickey started forward. But it was already over. In his mind Sam had seen himself putting the knife through Asmodeus’s trachea. Not enough to kill even a black-eyed demon, not when it was just an ordinary knife he was holding, and certainly not enough to kill Asmodeus – but enough to slow him down, maybe. Buy a little time. And then – well, it didn’t matter what he’d been going to do, because what happened was that the angle was all wrong, the wound only a shallow gash along Asmodeus’s jawbone, and then Asmodeus grabbed his wrist, the grip of his fingers unbreakable, and the knife fell to the floor.

“I guess that’s your answer, huh?” spat Asmodeus.

Sam flinched back. But then the yellow receded from Asmodeus’s eyes. He gave a short, harsh laugh. 

“Hell,” he said, “maybe it ain’t such an easy choice. Tell you what, boy: I’ll give you the rest of the night to decide.”

* * *

The room was silent. The glass in the window was thick, and no noise came from downstairs – not even the creak of a floorboard or the hiss of the kettle. He wondered without much interest what Asmodeus did when he wasn’t torturing people. Whether he read spy novels or watched reruns of the _Lawrence Welk Show_ or just sat and watched the clock tick.

Gabriel was curled in on himself, unmoving, in the corner. He hadn’t stirred since Asmodeus had left the room, and Sam hadn’t moved towards him. Hadn’t dared.

Asmodeus’s offer had been nothing more than a sick game. Couldn’t have been. Whatever Asmodeus knew or thought he knew about human psychology, he’d be terminally stupid not to put some kind of leash on Sam once he went back to Dean – and as Asmodeus had said, while he was a lot of things, stupid wasn’t one of them. But he’d believed it for a few seconds, and the temptation he’d felt, the feeling that any price was worth paying if it got his brother back, and – no point denying it – put a shield between himself and what Asmodeus had planned for him: that was real. You couldn’t pretend that what you did didn’t count just because the stakes weren’t what you’d thought. The Milgram Experiment had been a kind of game, but what it had revealed to the participants about themselves – about what they were willing to do, able to do – was true.

_But you knew already, didn’t you? You knew what you are. You’re a monster._

When he lifted his head sometime later, he saw to his surprise that Gabriel was watching him. His eyes glinted faintly in the darkness.

“Gabe –” There was nothing to say. But all the same – “Gabriel,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. I promise. I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

Strangely, his fear of what Asmodeus was going to do to him in a few hours had faded. It was as if, now that it was almost upon him, now that every avenue of escape was closed, the sheer enormity of his terror had blown a fuse in his brain and left him incapable of processing what was going to happen. Or maybe it was something else. There’d been periods of peace in the Cage, too, which strangely hadn’t had much to do with the presence or absence of pain. When he’d let Lucifer’s words sink into him, _slime, filth, abomination,_ let himself surrender, take what he deserved.

“It’s okay,” he said again, emptily, not looking at Gabriel. “It’s okay.”

A few minutes later the silence was broken by a shuffling, scrabbling noise. He looked up, wondering if it was a rat – and realised Gabriel had come to sit next to him. Before Sam could react Gabriel took hold of his hand.

He could have cried. He wondered how Gabriel could stand to touch him. He felt dirty all over – a dirt that went soul-deep. But Gabriel didn’t let go.

* * *

What he’d proposed to Gabriel a few weeks ago was simple enough. Cherubim and seraphim could be trapped by all sorts of wards, but short of setting up a ring of holy fire around the whole property, there wasn’t any way of keeping an archangel contained. Not permanently. If Gabriel were at full power, he could tear through Asmodeus’s warding like tissue paper. He’d confirmed as much, when Sam asked. Then his lips curved in a bitter smile. “Did you miss the part where I’m basically running on fumes?” he said.

“No,” said Sam. “That’s where I come in. See – a couple of years ago Dean and I had to travel back in time to gather phoenix ash.” Gabriel raised his eyebrows. “The phoenix ash isn’t really the important part. The point is, Cas, he – he was injured, so he couldn’t bring us back. So our friend Bobby let Cas touch his soul. Human souls are pretty much nuclear reactors, right? Energy sources. It gave Cas enough power to bring us back to the present. You touch my soul and you’ll have enough power to blast through the wards and fly us out of here.”

Asmodeus, he’d guessed, didn’t have a clue about how soul power worked, or what you could do with it if you were an angel. Otherwise he’d never have locked them up together.

Gabriel said, “ _That’s_ your plan?” He shook his head. “Sure,” he said, “a human soul could fuel up Cas. Thing is, Castiel is like a – a Cessna, whereas I’m the friggin’ Space Shuttle. The amount of power it’d take to get me to takeoff speed – by the time I was done with you, you’d be a red smear on the floor.”

Sam nodded. He was disappointed, but not totally surprised. There were bound to be snags. At least the principle of the thing was sound.

“Okay,” he said. “So we do something smaller. Send a message. Boost your angel radio enough to get through the warding. To Heaven, or Cas, or – or anybody. Gabriel, it’ll _work._ ”

But Gabriel hadn’t listened. Hadn’t been willing to try. Now, sitting in the darkness of the spare room, Sam wondered if Gabriel hadn’t been right. Every attempt he’d made had only brought them both more pain.

* * *

The blackness through the bars of the window was streaked with a band of ink-blue. _Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage, it’s the warding that keeps you in._ Dread had crept in after all. The blown fuse had been repaired. His knees were shaking uncontrollably. Was it three in the morning? Four? _How much time do I have left?_

Gabriel still hadn’t let go of his hand. Sam wished he could have talked to him – really talked to him, face to face. But you couldn’t force yourself asleep any more than you could force yourself sober. And it didn’t matter in the end. Even if he could persuade Gabriel to send a message to Cas, if Cas was still alive, or Hannah, or whoever, all they’d accomplish would be to let them know what had happened to Sam. It was like one of the problems you got in seventh-grade math class. _If Sam Winchester is a prisoner someplace within ten or twelve hours’ drive of east Texas, and Asmodeus is planning to start the process of reducing Sam’s brain to JELL-O within the next four to eight hours, and the nearest angels are who-the-hell-knows where, exactly how fucked is he, to the third decimal place?_

At least, he told himself, he hadn’t given Asmodeus the satisfaction of seeing him break completely. He had that much.

 _And what’s that worth, huh?_ Lucifer’s voice. _Not to downplay your little moral stand, I’m sure Amnesty International’ll mention you in their newsletter. But in case you forgot, you’re, uh, pretty much zero for three this summer._

He wondered what would happen to Gabriel when he was gone. If eventually he’d be human enough to die. Maybe that was better, thought Sam, than the alternative.

_That’s right, bunk buddy. Life’s a real bitch sometimes, huh? You couldn’t save your brother, you couldn’t save Cas, and you couldn’t even save the Prisoner of Zenda here. Which, honestly, is kind of sad, considering you’re basically a living escape pod._

A firework burst in Sam’s brain.

“Gabriel,” he whispered. “Gabriel, listen to me.”

Gabriel’s head had come to rest on his shoulder. He stirred, looking up questioningly.

“You said it’d kill me if you drew enough power from my soul to fly out of here.” He felt Gabriel’s body stiffen against him. “But it’d – it’d _work,_ wouldn’t it? If you touched my soul, you’d be powered up enough to bust through the warding. To fly.”

Gabriel recoiled. Sam could almost hear what he’d have said if he’d been able to speak: _You’ve got to be joking._

“I know,” said Sam. “I know. But Gabe, I – I don’t think I’ve got any cards left to play here. Just promise – promise you’ll go and find Cas, okay? If he’s still alive, he – he needs help. And my brother –” He’d never explained exactly what had happened to Dean: somehow there’d never been time. “Cas’ll explain what’s going on. Or – or just look for Crowley, I guess.”

He looked into Gabriel’s eyes, willing him – as if their weird mental connection extended to the waking hours – to understand, to accept that this was the only way: the only chance left to them.

“It’s okay,” he said. His voice broke. “ _Do it,_ Gabriel. Please.”

Gabriel was shivering. But he hadn’t pushed Sam away, and for a wonderful instant, Sam actually thought he was going to agree, and along with the instinctive shuddery thoughts of _fuck me this is gonna hurt_ and _Dean I’m sorry_ came bone-deep relief. It was going to be all right. He’d do this one last good thing and that would be the end of it. He’d have escaped Asmodeus, his mind still his own, and if it wasn’t the escape he’d have chosen, at least it was a sure one. _It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna be okay._

Then, slowly and distinctly, Gabriel shook his head.

Sam stared at him. The only coherent thought of which he was capable was tinged with disbelieving fury: _Where do you get off saying no?_ As if he’d been cheated of something.

 _“Gabriel,”_ he snapped. “Gabriel, for God’s sake –”

Then the floorboards outside the door creaked, and the words died in his throat.

 _No,_ he thought, _please, no, it can’t be. Not yet._ But the door was opening. Asmodeus, still dressed in his bloody clothes, loomed over them. 

Sam’s guts had turned to water. His hands and feet were burning with pins-and-needles pains. _Another minute left. Two minutes, maybe._ He couldn’t have said whether the voice was Lucifer’s or his own. _You know the worst thing, Sam? There’ll still be a tiny part of you left, afterwards. Just enough to realise what’s happened to you. It won’t be capable of much, of course. Mostly screaming._

“Well, son?” said Asmodeus. Coco had come in behind him.

Sam swallowed.

“No,” he said. “My answer’s no.”

He didn’t look at Gabriel. _Gabe,_ _I’m sorry. If I’d just known the right thing to say, I’d have made you understand. You’d have gotten out of here._ Asmodeus’s footsteps creaked on the floor. His hand came to rest in Sam’s hair. _Cas, Dean, I –_

“Huh,” said Asmodeus. “If that’s what you want. So be it.”

He stroked the shell of Sam’s right ear.

“Don’t hide your eyes, son,” he said. He wasn’t speaking to Sam now. His voice was low and gentle. “I want you to see this. See, I know you, Gabriel. I know you inside and out. There was a part of you that almost dared to believe Samuel here was gonna save you. The white knight coming to the rescue. But now – now you’re gonna see the truth. You ain’t never getting away from me. Hold him,” he ordered Coco. “Make sure he watches.”

Sam shut his eyes.

 _Let him kill me,_ he prayed. No one was listening, but he prayed all the same. _Let him go too far, make a mistake, please, please, let him just kill me –_

And then he couldn’t pray – couldn’t think. Something was forcing itself into his brain. His rapid breath stuttered, then evened out, and the nauseating realisation struck him that he wasn’t the one breathing anymore. The force that had invaded his brain was breathing for him, as if he were in an iron lung.

_Kill me –_

It wrapped itself around his thoughts, _squeezing_ _–_

_KILL ME –_

Asmodeus said, “Gabriel –!” 

And suddenly it was gone. It had retreated. Sam gasped for air.

Gabriel was on his feet. And – Sam stared – he was smiling: a weird, joyless smile that stretched the stitches in his mutilated lips. There was something in his hand. Too quickly for Sam to process, almost too quickly to see, he lunged at Coco and clawed at her face and hair. She collapsed on the floor, crying out in pain. Blood ran down her cheeks like tears.

 _Her eyes oh God_ _he gouged out her eyes –_

The sharp length of bone gleamed white in Gabriel’s hand. Careful as he was, Asmodeus hadn’t thought to inspect the mattress.

Sam was a wreck – skinny, starved, one arm out of commission, hurting from a hundred different wounds. But he was still a hunter. Asmodeus was like a pillar of iron – but he could be hurt, even if Sam didn’t have a hope in hell of doing any real damage without a weapon in his hand. Hard as he could, he drove his elbow into Asmodeus’s groin – heard a satisfying cry – and then something like a sledgehammer slammed into him and blackness filled his vision and he felt the bones of his face and jaw grate against each other. He went sprawling against the wall. With weird clarity he understood that Asmodeus had struck him, and that – for probably the first time – he hadn’t been pulling his punches.

Another blow like that and he’d be dead. Not twenty seconds ago he’d been praying for death. Now he was seized by a fierce instinctive longing to live. Water streamed from his eyes. He couldn’t seem to blink properly. Asmodeus was on the other side of the room, slumped on the floor like a drunk in an alley. He stared: it was incomprehensible, impossible that the Prince of Hell could be brought low. And then he saw – somehow distinct even in the dimness – the shadow of wings against the far wall. _Gabriel –_

The shape on the floor stirred. Not dead, Sam realised. Only stunned. Gabriel wasn’t strong enough to deal a killing blow. He tried to get up and nearly screamed at the shock of pain that ran through him. When the haze cleared from his eyes, he found that Gabriel was kneeling beside him.

“Gabe,” he said, or tried to say, “you – you gotta run – you gotta go.”

Gabriel didn’t move. _Run,_ Sam urged him mentally, _run!_ He pressed his hand to Sam’s chest. And then Sam understood. Their faces were inches apart, their breath – Gabriel was panting, short and ragged – mingled. They might have been one consciousness again, Sam thought dizzily, as they had been in the dreams. There was no need to speak the question out loud – nor the answer. He grasped Gabriel’s shoulder –

And he was back in the Cage, and Lucifer was lying on top of him, laughing, caressing him, kissing his hair. His fingers probed into Sam’s soul, into the deepest, most secret parts of him, sent shocks of pain through every nerve in his body. _Hold on tight, Sammy: the night is young. We’re just getting started._

_Don’t, please, please!_

And then another voice broke into his thoughts – a blessedly familiar voice – and brought him back to himself. 

_It’s me, kiddo. It’s just me. I got you. Close your eyes –_

The room was hot and full of light. He had glimpses of blue and gold feathers and shining claws and a crown of fire.

 _Close your eyes!_ Gabriel ordered.

But he couldn’t obey: his eyelids wouldn’t move. A tiny part of him, the last part of his brain capable of thinking clearly, thought that it was all right. He was glad this was the last thing he was going to see before he died. Asmodeus was back on his feet, steadying himself against the wall. His face was bloodless, his mouth open, and Sam thought, _Read ‘em and weep, you son of a bitch! We win._

Then Gabriel’s hand clamped over his eyes, and a blast of heat engulfed him, like the opening of some huge, hellish furnace –

* * *

– and he was awake again.

An enormous gibbous moon hung low in the deep blue sky. The air was full of a thrumming sound. Cicadas, maybe, or katydids. How long had it been since he’d heard insect song? For a half a second, maybe less, he lay on his back looking up at the sky with a total, blissful lack of understanding. _Heaven,_ he thought, _I’m in Heaven._ Then the pain hit him.

There were different kinds of pain, as Sam knew full well, and detachedly he observed that here were several of Baskin-Robbins’s 31 flavours: the familiar bone-deep hurt in his shoulder and ribs, and the throbbing of uncountable half-healed cuts and scrapes, and a raw, wet-feeling pain in his hands and face and chest, whose origin was inexplicable. He moaned, praying he wasn’t going to pass out again.

 _Hang on,_ he told himself _. Just hang on._

And he did. By degrees the pain became – not less, exactly, but familiar. Endurable. When he could move again, he set about wiggling his fingers and toes and was relieved when they responded normally. A stray memory nagged him. He had a vague recollection of something to do with his eyes: not pain, but sickening wrongness. But they seemed all right now. Maybe it had only been his imagination. He forgot the memory in the face of a sudden urge to vomit. He rolled clumsily onto his left side in order not to choke. What he brought up was mostly bile, streaked with blood: he’d bitten his tongue.

Meanwhile his thoughts were starting to race. _Where’s Gabriel? If I’m alive – and I have to be: this isn’t Hell, and you can’t be in this much pain in Heaven – then where is he?_

 _And_ how _am I still alive?_

It was long minutes before he could sit up. When he finally managed it his head spun and he had to shut his eyes in order not to vomit again. He looked himself over in the moonlight and nearly cried out. His hands, and his arms up to the elbow, were disfigured with blistering, seeping burns. More wounds marked his chest, and – as he discovered when he tentatively touched his face – his cheeks and forehead. The cloth of his shirt was pockmarked here and there with charred black holes. The upper layer of skin had totally sloughed off the wound on the palm of his left hand, leaving behind stinging wetness.

What the hell had happened to him?

He looked around. He was in a field, which must, he thought later on, have lain fallow for long seasons: the grass was thick, up to his shoulders in some places, broken here and there by scrubby-looking shrubs. Up ahead, maybe half a mile distant, were the black shapes of trees. But none of those things made any immediate conscious impression. All he saw – all he could see – was the small, crumpled figure lying about four yards away.

He pulled himself towards it, crawling on his knees, and drew in a shuddery breath and turned Gabriel onto his back.

“Gabriel,” he said, “Gabe, you – you gotta look at me –”

His face was slack, his nose dripping blood.

“ _Please,_ just look at me –”

And then, _oh thank God,_ Gabriel was opening his eyes.

“Are you okay? Uh, just – just nod, I guess. Or shake your head.”

Gabriel poked him in the forehead. _I’m a telepath, brainac. Remember?_ His voice echoed through Sam’s brain. Sam laughed out loud. _You get the number of that truck?_

Things were coming back to him. Light and heat. Gabriel’s hand in his chest. Touching his soul. But – “What the hell happened? Where are we?” Gabriel tried to sit up, wavered, and groaned. “Here, it’s okay. Let me –”

As soon as he was up, he collapsed against Sam’s side, breathing hard. _Okay. Okay._ He glanced up at Sam. _You want the good news or the bad news first?_

“Uh, the good news, I guess.”

 _Good news is, you’re alive. For now. You’re, uh – you’re a little crispy around the edges. And on the inside._ He gave Sam a what-do-you-expect shrug. _Don’t look at me like that: this was your idea. I healed up the worst of the damage – and the skull fractures, by the way: you’re welcome – but I can’t fix everything._

Sam said, “You call that good news?”

_It’s all relative, Sam. Point is, that smear of grace inside you – it had a sneaky side effect I didn’t expect. Think of it like reversing the polarity of your soul._

“What, like _Doctor Who_?”

 _Like magnets,_ said Gabriel impatiently. _Normally, souls and grace don’t – don’t click. You’re a north pole, I’m a north pole, we’re trying to repel each other. So all the time I’m rooting around in your chest, you’re trying to wriggle away from me. And the longer I have my hands in there, trying to pin you down, the more damage I do. Which is how you, bucko, end up popping like a meat balloon. But in this case,_ his eyes brightening, _that little speck of grace recognised me. Wanted to come back to Papa. And since it’s basically glued to your soul –_

“It changed me to a south pole,” said Sam, realising. “Meaning –”

 _Meaning,_ said Gabriel, _you weren’t trying to wriggle away. I could siphon off enough power to fly without having to dig too deep._ He sighed. _Bad news is, that’s_ all _it let me do. End of the day, you’re still human. It was either quit as soon as I was charged up enough to fly us out, or carry on drawing power and turn you into Winchester flambé. If I was at full strength I could’ve flown halfway across the galaxy. As it is –_

A prickle of dread ran down Sam’s spine. “What?”

 _We’re about thirty miles from Asmodeus’s place,_ Gabriel said. _Maybe a little less. Just outside of Tracy, Georgia. And once he dusts himself off –_

Cold horror seized him. “He’s gonna be –”

_On us like lube on silicone? Yup._

“Do you have enough juice left to fly _anywhere_?” Gabriel shook his head. “Then we need to move,” Sam said. “Now.”

_Yeah. Great. I’ll get right on that._

Sam gritted his teeth. Useless to ignore the odds against them – injured, in the middle of nowhere, with Asmodeus in pursuit. Useless to pretend they stood any real chance. _Cas will help us. Or Hannah. Somebody._ But even if someone – anyone – was listening, what was the likelihood they’d make it in time – before Asmodeus caught up to them?

 _So what?_ he thought. _You’re gonna lie down and give up now?_

No. He forced himself to his feet, groaning. Another wave of dizziness came over him – and with it panic: if he fell down, there was no chance in hell he’d be getting back up again – but he shut his eyes, counting to ten, and when he opened them again it had eased a little.

“Come on,” he said to Gabriel, and – to his relief – Gabriel made a face and held out his hand and let Sam help him painfully to his feet.

Back at the start of the summer, he could have run half a mile in under two minutes thirty, easy. But then he hadn’t been working with cracked ribs and a wrecked shoulder and however many weeks’ worth of underfeeding. In any case, his pace was limited by Gabriel’s, and Gabriel, it quickly became apparent, wasn’t going to be qualifying for the Boston Marathon anytime soon. They limped through the grass, stopping every few paces to catch their breath. Just as long as they were moving at all, Sam told himself. That was all that counted.

He didn’t dare try heading for the road. Even if they could get a lift – not likely at zero dark thirty – there’d be no way of telling, till it was too late, if the driver was just a regular good Samaritan or one of Asmodeus’s servants, or hell, Asmodeus himself, in a new meatsuit. The trees would shelter them, at least. Would buy them time. He’d figure out a plan by the time the sun came up. Right now all that mattered was to keep going. If you had to go down, it was better to go down fighting, and if you couldn’t fight you could still run.

 _If Asmodeus wants us,_ he decided, _he’s goddamn well going to have to come and get us._

His feet were freezing. The ground was wet and sloppy – it must have rained in the last hour or so – and more than once he nearly lost his footing. The thought of the trail they were leaving behind nagged at him, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. Mosquitoes swarmed around them. At first Sam slapped them away, but five more appeared for every one he swatted, biting his bare forearms, his cheeks, his eyelids.

 _Cas,_ he prayed, _Castiel, it’s me. I made it out._ But God knew if Cas was even still alive. _Hannah, if you can hear me, please, it’s Sam Winchester. I’m somewhere near Tracy, Georgia. Gabriel’s with me. Your brother Gabriel –_

They were almost halfway to the tree line when Gabriel fell. One second he was trudging along behind Sam, and the next he was on his knees, his face a sickly greyish colour, damp with sweat. Sam shoved down his panic – _Christ, just hang on, please –_ and said, “What’s wrong? Come on, talk to me –”

_That’s the, uh, that’s the thing about soul energy. Burns hot and fast. Big power boost, but it doesn’t last long._

“Okay. Okay. You’re gonna be fine. We’re almost there. Just a little farther.” _Please, please, hang on._ There was no way he could carry Gabriel, not with his busted shoulder. “Can you get back on your feet?”

His face twisted. _Sure thing. Lay on, MacDuff._

Strange things drifted through his head as they walked. The thumping beat of the old CCR song: _They told me don’t go walking slow, the devil’s on the loose._ The memory of Dean watching him do push-ups on the floor of their motel room, correcting his form: _C’mon, Sammy. No pain, no gain._ His feet began to throb with the cold. _Cas, please –_

It was drizzling by the time they reached the edge of the field: chilly, clammy rain that soaked them to the skin. The tangle of pines rose up before them. No nature walk this, Sam reflected sourly. These woods were dense, untended, and unwelcoming. Some sort of grass scratched at his feet and ankles, tough as wire.

Even so, Sam didn’t dare stop moving till they were about ten metres into the pines. Then – and only then – did he let himself collapse. He had the strange, buzzy feeling he sometimes got after pushing himself too far on a run: the feeling of being not quite connected to his own body. Never mind. He made Gabriel sit up and looked him over. One of the wounds on his face had opened up and was oozing blood, and his eyes had a glassy look. His breathing was sharp and shallow. But he was conscious, at least, and after a second or two his eyes focussed on Sam properly. “You with me?” said Sam.

_Unfortunately for me, yes._

Resting had been a mistake, he decided a few minutes later. Hard as it was to keep going, it was harder by far to get up again after even a brief respite. He’d let them stay put longer than he should have, purely because the thought of getting back on his feet had been almost physically sickening.

_C’mon, Sammy. No pain –_

They walked on. Sometimes he seemed to see himself from above, as if he were being filmed by a TV camera, and sometimes his awareness narrowed to a single point of pain – the wound on his palm, or the burning ache in his shoulder, and he hardly knew he was moving at all. Gabriel was a silent ghost at his side. _Just a little farther, okay? Then we can rest._ He was desperately thirsty. He wondered if Gabriel was capable of feeling hunger or thirst yet, if he’d been brought that low, and then asked himself what exactly he planned on doing about it if so.

The second time Gabriel fell, Sam thought he might actually burst into tears. He knelt down stiffly, every nerve protesting, and lifted Gabriel’s head gently with his good hand. No blood, at least. Gabriel’s eyelids fluttered. _Listen,_ he said, his mental voice creaky in Sam’s head. _We’re gonna have to face facts here._

Sam said, “What are you talking about? We’re out, Gabe. We’re gonna be fine. We’ve just gotta keep going.”

_Oh, there’s that insane optimism I know and love. Look. I get it. You want a win._

“That’s nothing to do with this. You don’t want to go back there –”

 _Obviously. So, uh – this is our Old Yeller moment, kiddo._ Sam stared at him. Then understanding hit. _Remember what I told you? Sometimes you’ve gotta let people go._

Sam turned away. He was too angry to speak. At last he forced the words out.

“No,” he said. “No way in hell.”

_Not really up to you, Sam. Frankly, I’m low enough on juice I could probably bash my head open on a rock. But dying’s like sex: it’s better with other people. So –_

A ghastly image pushed itself into his brain: his own hands around Gabriel’s throat.

“You son of a bitch,” he said, “it’s not gonna happen.”

 _Asmodeus is gonna keep hunting us. I can’t – I can’t let him drag me back there._ He looked up at Sam, his face desperate. _Do it,_ he said. _And then run like hell._ Sam didn’t move. _For the love of God,_ Gabriel snapped in his head, _this isn’t about you, or – or your moral principles, or your weird crush on me. This is about me, Sam. I can’t go back to Asmodeus. And you can’t save me._

Sam bit his lip.

“No,” he said. “We’re both gonna make it. End of story.”

Gabriel’s eyes were bright with fury.

 _One of these days,_ he said venomously, _you’re gonna have to learn when to give up._

* * *

He smelled the creek before he saw it. A wet organic smell of rotting vegetation. He pushed through the pines and saw moonlight glinting on the water, dimpled by the falling rain. 

He’d left Gabriel under the shelter of a spreading pine a few yards back, having dragged him along begrudgingly for another quarter mile. After a while he’d gotten the impression that Gabriel was obeying his orders only because he was too exhausted, mentally and physically, to keep on arguing. But the anger in his eyes when he looked at Sam hadn’t dimmed. Guilt throbbed in his heart. He knew perfectly well that their chances were one in a thousand of actually getting away from Asmodeus. But a slim chance wasn’t the same as none. _If it comes down to it,_ he promised himself, _if Asmodeus is on top of us, then I’ll do it. I’ll give him what he wants._ But he wondered, if it really did come to that, whether he’d be able to go through with it.

He half-scrambled, half-slid down the muddy bank and – with a shock that jarred his battered body – fell on his knees in the shallow water. But the pain hardly registered. Already he was bringing his hands to his mouth, gulping greedily. Water spilled over his throat and chin. Christ only knew whether it was safe to drink, but that was the least of his problems at this point. As he got up a flash of something white caught his eye: a crumpled paper bag, and a few feet away, a foam takeaway cup half-buried in the mud.

He stilled. Trash meant people. Was there a trail in the woods somewhere? Maybe Mickey and Coco were already hunting through the trees, their vehicle parked at the trailhead.

Or maybe, he thought, letting himself drift into fantasy for a moment, maybe in the morning somebody would come by – out for a hike, or birdwatching – and he’d make sure somehow that they weren’t Mickey or Coco or Asmodeus in a new vessel, and then he’d get their attention and ask if they’d mind giving him and Gabriel a lift back to civilisation.

_And what do you think they’re gonna say when you come out of the trees covered in blood, looking like you just escaped the state penitentiary? “Well, sure, son, my truck’s a mile back that way. Heck, why don’t you fellas just take the keys?”_

Nothing he could do at the moment, in any case. He dug the cup out of the muck, wincing at the pain in his hand, and poured out two or three tablespoons of something dark and syrupy. Coke, he realised by the smell, and a slurry of drowned bugs. Stiffly he knelt again and filled it with water. Then he pulled himself up the bank and went to check on Gabriel.

He wasn’t moving. His eyes were shut, his chest rising and falling softly. Sam crouched beside him, dipped the ragged edge of his sleeve in the water, and used it to clean some of the grime and dried blood from his face. The wound on his cheek was still bleeding sluggishly. It was a useless gesture, he thought. Gabriel wasn’t even awake to notice. But you had to do something. And Gabriel had done it for him. 

The wind stirred the branches of the pines. It was colder than he’d expected after weeks of sticky humidity. Was it the end of summer already? Or was this sort of cold spell normal in July or August? He couldn’t remember. His joints ached.

He leant against the trunk of the tree and put his good arm around Gabriel’s shoulders. His small body was cold to the touch. As if he were already dead. Sam shoved the thought away. Incredible, he thought, that this frail little vessel could hold such impossible power: could contain the beautiful, burning thing he’d glimpsed, if only for a moment, before they’d escaped.

* * *

They were back in the bedroom. The rotted smell of old blood was heavy in the air: the flies were buzzing drowsily in the heat. His mind stuttered, caught in horrified denial. 

_No. No! We got out. We did –_

And then he realised. He reached for the boundary between himself and Gabriel, and the next moment Gabriel stood in front of him, unsteady on his feet. He looked concussed, or drunk. Sam felt queasy. Surely Gabriel would never have consciously chosen to relieve this memory. He wasn’t sure what it meant that Gabriel wasn’t capable of controlling his own dreams any longer – but it couldn’t be good. “Gabe,” he said, “you – you gotta wake up.”

Gabriel swayed. Then his eyes seemed to focus on Sam.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “I got you out. I –”

“Yeah,” said Sam, “yeah, that’s right. We both got out, Gabriel. You saved us. But you gotta wake up now. I think – I think you might be dying.”

“Dying,” repeated Gabriel. He sounded shattered. “I couldn’t – what was I gonna do? I knew it was gonna kill you. Thought it was better –” He broke off. “You asked me to try,” he said to Sam. “After you – after you put the knife down. What would it make me if I didn’t – didn’t try? For you?” He shook his head. “Always liked you,” he said. “Moment I saw you at Crawford Hall. I –”

“You need to _wake up_ ,” said Sam. “We’re in the woods,” he said, when Gabriel blinked at him uncomprehendingly. “We got out, remember? Both of us. But you –”

He broke off. Gabriel wasn’t listening. 

“They’re looking for us,” he said, muzzily. “They know – they –”

“Who? Asmodeus’s people?”

But it was too late. He woke to the rain on his face.

* * *

Dawn had turned the sky dullish grey. The rain was coming down hard, and the day was cold and gloomy. The huge old pines struck him as oppressive in their size and darkness.

The first second after waking he’d reached, frantically, for Gabriel, and his racing heart hadn’t calmed till he’d felt the flutter of the pulse in Gabriel’s throat. He was still alive. For now. But his breath was fast and shallow, his face hot, his lips tinged bluish. Was it just the effect of drawing in a nuclear reactor’s worth of power, then burning it off in seconds? Or was he human enough that he was beginning to succumb to infection? Either way, Sam thought, it didn’t portend anything good.

Steam fog was rising off the creek. He dragged himself down to the water, slowly and painfully, and drank. Almost as soon as he’d swallowed, a burning pain erupted in his gut and he fell forward – barely saving himself on his good elbow – and vomited. This time it had the texture and colour of coffee grounds.

He lay still, the muddy earth cool against his face. This was it, he realised. End of the line. Game over, thanks for playing. Gabriel couldn’t possibly go on. So what were the options? Stay with him. Hope Cas or Hannah or somebody came for them in time. Or leave him and head on alone out of the woods. Get help and then come back for Gabriel. But even if the thought of leaving Gabriel hadn’t felt like a betrayal, even if he hadn’t been terrified that the first person he met would be one of Asmodeus’s servants in a new meatsuit, the plain truth was – he wasn’t so sure he could go on, either. Whatever Gabriel touching his soul had done to him, it wasn’t getting better. His muscles seemed to have turned to jelly.

He was drinking again from his cupped hand, trying to force down a little more water to compensate for what he’d puked up, when he saw them. A jolt went through him. Two figures about fifty yards upstream, on the opposite bank. Neither of them big enough to be Mickey, or tiny enough to be Coco. But that didn’t mean anything. He squinted into the mist.

 _Cas, is that you?_ It couldn’t be. _Hannah? We’re on the other side of the creek._

No answer. Not a wave, or a look. His heart thudded. He dragged himself up the bank and scrambled into the trees. Gabriel was where he’d left him, still and silent.

“Come on,” Sam snapped, knowing it was futile, “come on, we’ve gotta move again.”

Gabriel didn’t stir. Maybe, Sam thought, accepting even as he did that it was hopeless, maybe they were just hikers after all. Maybe the universe had decided, for once, to cut them a goddamn break. Then – he shuddered – the sound of splashing water echoed through the trees. They were crossing the creek.

 _Goddamn you, goddamn you._ He didn’t know who he was addressing. Asmodeus. Himself. God, maybe. _Goddamn you –_

He shook Gabriel’s shoulder, to no effect. Desperation made him half-insane: he put his good hand under Gabriel’s arm and tried lifting him. It was a mistake. He shuddered, his shoulder and back on fire, his bowels twisting. The thudding of the blood in his ears seemed to drown out every other sound. Their pursuers might have been fifty yards away or five.

Then, through the haze of pain, he heard a voice:

“Winchester! Sam Winchester!”

 _Should’ve tried to get to the highway, should’ve risked it –_ He threw himself on top of Gabriel. It was the only thing left to do. _I’m sorry, Gabe. Should’ve done what you asked –_

Then a hand was on his shoulder – a hand with a grip like iron – and he looked up into a stranger’s face: thin and pale with a scrubby beard.

“Is it him?” said somebody.

“It’s him.” He bent down. Sam, reflexively, tried to wrench out of his grip. “It’s all right,” he said, and – Sam started – his eyes flashed silver-blue. _Grace-light,_ Sam thought, hardly daring to believe it. “It’s all right,” he repeated.

Sam blinked. Not a stranger after all, he realised. Something about the guy’s face –

“Wait a second,” he said, dazedly. “I know you.”

“And I know you.” He gave Sam a bright smile. “Sam Winchester,” he said. Sam couldn’t remember the last time someone had smiled at him with genuine friendliness. “My name is Inias. I’m a friend of Castiel’s. And this is Ruth. The Commander sent us to find you.”

* * *

_Well, bunk buddy: guess this is it. Happy ending. You got the whole rescue team, huh? Everything but the Saint Bernard._

_Word from your sponsor, though: maybe don’t tell them how you were ready to start carving up the sad sack here on Asmodeus’s say-so. Maybe keep that your little secret._

_I mean, lying to them should be easy. You’re already so good at lying to yourself._

_See you around, Sammy._

* * *

He wanted to be back on the road.

The tang of gasoline hung in the air, and underneath it something sweet and fermented-smelling. They were parked at a roadside stand – _T-SHIRTS 3/$10!! PECANS!! FIREWORKS!! –_ and Ruth was gassing up the car, a sensible blue Corolla, while Inias peered at a display of Roman candles. Sam’s palms were growing clammy. He told himself that they wouldn’t have left the car if it weren’t safe. But it was one thing to tell yourself that and another thing to believe it. Every shout, every crunch of gravel, was _him._ Close your eyes a second and he’s there, waiting to drag you back.

Gabriel was slumped beside him, his eyes shut. He hadn’t stirred while Ruth carried him to the car. Not till she’d tried healing him.

A rap sounded on the window. Inias had come back.

“I thought you might like something to eat,” he said, and handed Sam a red plastic bag that was surprisingly heavy for its size. Peaches, Sam realised. His mouth began to water. He pulled one of the bag, ate it in a few wolfish bites, threw the pit onto the asphalt, and bit into another. Inias was watching him curiously. Like you’d watch the monkeys eating at the zoo. “And I bought you both some new clothing,” he added.

The t-shirt he handed over had _Lee’s Jumbo Peanuts_ printed on the front – Dean would have come up with a dirty joke about that – and it hung loosely on Sam’s boney shoulders. He ate two more peaches, and then set about stripping off Gabriel’s filthy clothes. Gabriel didn’t wake. He might as well have been manhandling a corpse. Sam handed the rags to Inias.

“You can get rid of those,” he said. His voice sounded strange. Hollow, somehow. 

And the thing was, it should have been a relief: to have something in his stomach, to be dressed in clean clothing. Hell, even the stupid logo on the shirt should have been a relief: proof that they’d escaped, left the nightmare behind and fought their way back to the real world, the world of Drink Coca-Cola and no-money-down and $3.99 breakfast specials. But he couldn’t make himself feel the way he knew he should. It was like he’d been doped with something, or lobotomised. The only thing he felt, really felt, was fear. He resented even the brief stop for gas. But Ruth and Inias insisted, as if it was possible to reason with him, that they’d know if Asmodeus or his servants were in pursuit.

They hadn’t wasted any time putting a few hundred miles between themselves and Asmodeus’s cottage, at least. While the sun burned off the mist and turned the sky a blazing blue, they’d sped northwards on I-185, Inias driving, Sam and Gabriel in the backseat with Ruth. He’d assumed at first that they were heading towards one of the gates to Heaven. That they’d drop Sam himself at the nearest hospital – or possibly just the nearest bus station – and take Gabriel back home. But when he asked, Ruth shook her head.

“He can’t enter Heaven,” she said curtly. “He’s more human than angel at this point. There’s hardly a sliver of grace left in him.”

“Then where –”

“The Men of Letters Bunker,” said Inias. Sam blinked. “The warding – it’s not like anything we’ve ever seen. There’s no safer place on Earth. The Commander ordered us to take you both there till Gabriel’s recovered.” He added, almost guiltily, “I hope you don’t mind.”

Sam gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

“Long as you don’t use up all the hot water,” he said.

Afterwards he sat still, his brain like a blackboard somebody had wiped clean, till he saw Ruth pull Gabriel’s head onto her knee. “I can’t repair an archangel’s grace,” she said, at Sam’s look. “No angel can. But his vessel is dying. I’m a _Rit Zien._ A healer. I can mend his human body.”

Sam nodded. Ruth’s fingers, glowing blue, touched Gabriel’s lips –

And an electric charge blasted through the car. Sam cried out and flinched away. Ruth shouted something to Inias. _Grace,_ he realised. Gabriel wasn’t lucid: his eyes weren’t even open. But he’d felt Ruth’s touch, and the last speck of grace left inside him had flared up in defence. _Oh please,_ Sam begged him mentally, _please, don’t do that again._ Out loud he said, “It’s okay. Gabe, it’s okay.” Gabriel thrashed and whimpered. Sam steeled himself and grabbed his shoulder. “It’s _okay_ ,” he pleaded.

Gabriel didn’t lash out as he’d half-expected. Instead he fell still, shivering.

Sam let out a breath. “We’re safe,” he whispered. “It’s not Asmodeus. It’s one of your sisters. An angel. She’s trying to help you.” To Ruth he said, “Did you –?”

“He’ll live,” she said. “Now. I cured the infection that would have killed him.”

“What about his grace? Can’t you do anything? Like with a spell, or –?”

“No,” she said. “He’ll recover. His grace will regenerate naturally, given time.” Her gaze fell on Sam, disconcertingly clinical. “I can’t reverse the effects of your malnourishment,” she said. “But I can heal your other injuries.”

Sam hesitated – for what reason, he couldn’t have said.

“Yeah,” he said, after a moment. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

Now, as he sat dressed in his clean shirt, peach juice running down his chin as he ate, he was totally free of pain. He’d flexed the fingers of his right hand, twisted his wrist, rotated his shoulder. The joints moved smoothly. His skin was unmarked, his breathing easy. Perversely, he felt almost bereft. Even in his dreams the pain of his injuries had been present, if dimly – like background radiation. He had the feeling of something having been knocked out from under him.

 _You’re sick in the head,_ he thought to himself. _Guess there’s no curing that._

Even learning about Cas hadn’t rocked him as it should have done. He hadn’t dared ask: there was every chance that Cas was dead, and he wasn’t sure if hearing it spoken out loud might not be the thing that finally broke him apart. In the end it was Inias who said, unprompted, “You should know, Sam: Castiel is – he’s very ill.”

Sam’s head jerked up.

He said, “Cas is _alive_?” 

“He’s very ill. As I said.”

“He’s dying,” said Ruth shortly.

“He can’t hold on much longer,” said Inias. “Not without cutting out his grace. But he was determined to see you saved. He relayed all of your prayers last night to Heaven.”

They hadn’t said anything else about Cas after that. There wasn’t anything to say.

Ruth had come back to the car. Sitting shotgun, this time. Inias adjusted the sun visor. Sam dug his nails into his palms. _Home,_ he told himself. _We’re going home. We got out._ Maybe if he repeated it enough, it’d sink in.

The engine turned over. They pulled out into the road.

* * *

Sometime while they were passing through Missouri Sam fell asleep, and when he woke again, after they’d crossed the Kansas state line, it was with a disorienting feeling of coming up for air from deep underwater. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to sleep deeply, without pain. He sat up and drank from the bottle of water Inias had given him. The plastic taste of it, the feel of the bottle in his hands, were real things. But he couldn’t quite believe in them. The possibility lingered at the back of his mind that at some point he’d wake up, _really_ wake up, and see the scratched-up ceiling and the walls stained with old blood.

He was dozing again when the car came to a stop. He glanced up, disoriented, and then recognised the grey slab of the Bunker rising up from the hillside.

_Home._

Inias went ahead, carrying Gabriel in his arms. Ruth walked behind them, her blade drawn. Just in case. The door was unlocked. Somebody was waiting for them. The lights were on: the old computer systems hummed. He started down the stairs – and heard another sound: the sound of somebody else’s footsteps.

And then Cas’s arms were around him, Cas was kneeling with him on the floor of the war room, and for the first time since escaping Asmodeus Sam began to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters to go, folks: we're not out of the woods yet. Well, we're out of the literal woods, yes, but you know what I mean.
> 
> As always, leave a comment if you've got time!


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, he stood looking on as Inias drew his blade across Cas’s throat.

It wasn’t a moment too soon. After he’d got hold of himself last night, he’d looked at Cas – really looked at him – and the first thought that had gone through his head was, _How the hell did you even get out of bed?_ He was gaunt and grey-faced, his eyes bloodshot. _You’re dying in front of me._ He’d known, of course. But it was one thing to know, another to see it for yourself. He’d put his hand on Cas’s shoulder, meaning to lead him back to whichever bedroom he’d chosen for himself – but then Cas caught sight of Gabriel, and between explaining everything and getting Gabriel himself to a bed and Ruth tersely informing them that she was going outside to seek revelation in the movements of the stars – whatever that meant – a quarter of an hour went by, and that was when Cas staggered and all the blood went out of his face and Sam only just managed to catch him before he collapsed.

Since then, he hadn’t left his room. When Sam had come in to talk to him, he’d been too weak even to lift his head.

Blood oozed from the gash in Cas’s throat. A tiny bright wisp drifted out and vanished into the air. Inias passed his hand over the wound and sealed it, then pressed his fingers to Cas’s cheek while the colour slowly came back to his face. “How do you feel?” he said.

“Like myself again,” said Cas. He smiled. “Thank you, Inias.”

“Peachy,” said Gabriel. He was standing at the foot of the bed, his face unreadable. Another memory of yesterday night came back to Sam. Sitting on the bed in the room where they’d put Gabriel, lifting the scalpel to his lips and cutting the stitches one by one. He’d had a stupid hope, which he hadn’t realised he’d been holding onto till the last stitch was out, that it would trigger something: that as soon as the stitches were gone Gabriel’s eyes would snap open. But life didn’t work that way. He set down the scalpel and carefully wiped the blood from Gabriel’s lips.

Nobody needed his attention for the moment. He made his way to the washroom and showered and shaved – the sight of his own pale, bearded face in the mirror nearly brought him to tears again, though he didn’t really understand why – and dressed himself. It was an unexpected relief, he found, to have shoes on.

It wasn’t till an hour or so later, when he came in to check on Gabriel – carrying a tray with a glass of water and a bowl of instant oatmeal, just in case Gabriel was human enough to need to eat – that he heard the rustle of the sheets. He snapped on the light –

“What the –”

And jumped, sloshing water over the tray.

“Oh, it’s you,” said Gabriel, blinking at him. “Carry on, nurse.”

Sam could have cried with relief. “You’re awake,” he said. He set the tray down on the dresser. “Are you – are you okay?”

“Yeah. Kind of. Where the hell are we, the Diefenbunker?” He pulled back the cover and got up: Sam started towards him, but Gabriel was steady on his feet. He looked almost like his old self. Only the faint movement of his throat – he was still breathing – betrayed that anything was wrong. “Tell you the truth, everything’s a little fuzzy after we ended up in the woods,” he said. “You wanna fill in a couple gaps?”

There was only one chair in the room. Gabriel sat down and got up again, pacing from the bureau to the door, the sink to the nightstand, while Sam sat on the unmade bed, explaining about the woods, and meeting Inias and Ruth, and Cas. “So tell him to can the dying swan act and cut out what’s-his-name’s grace,” said Gabriel. “He can’t suffer through a few more months of being human till he finds his own bottle of special sauce?”

“He won’t do it. He said we need an angel on our side. Dean –”

He steeled himself to finally explain about Dean. But before he could figure out where to start, Gabriel said, “Oh please. After helping to rescue me, and leading Heaven to one of the Princes of Hell – Castiel’s gonna have more celestial groupies hanging around than he knows what to do with. You want angels? You’ll get ‘em. On which note,” getting to his feet again, “I think I’ll go and talk some sense into little bro. _Muchas gracias._ ”

Since then Sam had had an uneasy feeling that Gabriel was avoiding him – although it might have been only his imagination. It was a big bunker: they weren’t exactly tripping over each other. And even if he was, well, who could really blame him? Anyway, he didn’t have time to worry about Gabriel: not when Cas was practically on his deathbed.

He couldn’t even be bitter that it had been Gabriel who’d gotten through to Cas, in the end. Not really. Not after he woke up around five from the shallow, uneasy sleep he’d fallen into for a few hours and went to look in on Cas again, and found him awake, staring dully at the ceiling. Sam knew without asking that something had changed.

“I suppose,” said Cas, “I suppose you’d call it a Morton’s fork.” He turned his head a little to look at Sam properly. “When I was human, there were so – so many things I didn’t know. Things I couldn’t do. You know, back in Heaven I – I told Hannah that all I wanted was to be an angel. The truth is, being an angel – it’s the only way I know how to be useful. To help you and Dean. But having a soul – _feeling_ things –” He breathed out a sigh. “As an angel, there’s – it’s like having a – a pane of glass between me and the world. And I – human lives are so short. Like candles burning. I don’t want to go on after –”

“You want to be human,” said Sam.

It was all he could say. He felt as if the breath had been knocked out of him. All this time, and he’d never seen it – never realised what Cas really wanted.

_What the hell kind of friend am I, anyway?_

“In any case,” said Cas, “it doesn’t matter anymore. Gabriel thinks the Host of Heaven may be willing to help us. And I – I’m no use to you even as an angel now. I’d have died for you, Sam, if it could bring Dean back. But I can’t even – even leave the Bunker.”

Something snapped inside him.

“The hell with being useful,” said Sam. Cas looked at him uncomprehendingly. “Cas, I just – I just need you alive, man.” Even as he said it, he wondered why he expected Cas to believe him. After the weeks on his own, the weeks when Sam barely remembered to call or didn’t call at all, too busy thinking about Dean, about the possibility of another demonic omen, about the next lead. But even so – “All the time Asmodeus had me, I – I kept thinking, what if I get out of here and he’s already dead. I can’t lose you too. And if the angels don’t wanna help – then we’ll find another way. We’ll still get Dean back. We stopped the Apocalypse with just the three of us.”

“You stopped it,” Cas corrected. “And Dean –”

He broke off coughing. Sam found a box of Kleenex and handed it over. By the time Cas was able to speak again the tissue was full of blood. It made Sam’s stomach turn. Not that he wasn’t used to seeing blood, but –

“I can’t lose you,” he said. “You – you’re my brother, Cas.”

Cas stared at him with bruise-shadowed eyes. At last he rasped out, “I knew it wasn’t you.”

“What?”

“The demon called me. I don’t know whether – whether you knew that. He mimicked your voice. I’ve seen your soul,” said Cas. “I knew it wasn’t you.”

“Cas –” His voice broke. “I love you,” he said, and the look on Cas’s face was like seeing the sun come out.

He didn’t want to go, but Cas was half-asleep, and Sam knew he’d only make things worse for himself if he tried to stay awake. On his way out of the room he noticed a stack of books on the desk. _Areopagitica. Selected Poems of Tao Ch’ien. The Complete Works of Joseph Addison._ “They’re for Hannah,” Cas said.

“For Hannah?”

“While you were – were missing,” said Cas, “she – came to me sometimes. She worried about me. And she –” He broke off. “It isn’t important,” he said. “But I thought she might benefit from having something else to focus on.”

Sam couldn’t help smiling. How many times had he tried to distract Dean from fussing over him when he was sick or down with an injury: asking him to make a food run, to grab something from the library?

“Lately she’s – she’s been asking me for more,” said Cas. “She’s suspicious of human things. But she’s willing to open her mind. To experiment.”

It was a few hours after that that Inias came to find Sam. He didn’t mince words. If they were going to cut out Cas’s grace, it had to be now. A few days and either he’d be human or he’d be dead. But at last Sam was beginning to understand that it wasn’t such a hard choice after all.

Now he watched as Inias put his blade away. There was no trace left of the wound to Cas’s throat. He looked healthy. Human. Inias helped him out of bed and got him on his feet. Cas swayed a little, and then Gabriel was at his side, before Sam could move. “Easy there, Pinocchio: you’re a real boy now. Hope Sam read up on care and feeding.”

“I think we can manage,” said Sam.

“In that case,” said Cas, “I’d like a burrito. And a Sno Ball. I’ve missed eating. Tasting food.”

“Super,” said Gabriel, rolling his eyes. “You should write to _True Confessions_. ‘I Gave Up Immortality in Return for Junk Food’.”

But there wasn’t much bite in his voice. Once, Sam thought, he’d have snapped his fingers and – well, maybe not. It wasn’t as if Gabriel had ever been inclined to use his powers altruistically. Even so, it worried Sam that he didn’t try. Ruth had said his grace would restore itself in time. But how much time was it going to take?

* * *

Rooting through Dean’s stash of junk didn’t turn up any Sno Balls – and he wasn’t about to ask an angel to run to the nearest gas station, even if Inias probably would have agreed – but he did find a box of leftover Zebra Cakes. Cas unwrapped two, bit into one, and pushed the other across the table. _Oh, well: you can’t leave somebody to eat his first meal as a human being on his own. First meal of this go-round, anyway._ And it had been a good twenty or so hours since he’d eaten. The peaches had been a fluke. He’d toasted himself a couple of frozen waffles for breakfast, forced down three bites, and promptly puked them up. But he finished off the cake no problem and got up and pulled the box of burritos out of the freezer. “This,” said Cas, a few minutes later, “is _very_ good.”

“You want another one?”

“Yes.” Sam laughed. Cas stood and picked up his plate. “Finish yours. I got this.”

And he did finish it, though he ate mechanically, chewing without tasting. He imagined seeing himself from a few yards away: how the movements of his jaw would look, the up and down of his fork. The thought drifted through his brain that he should tell Cas – well, what? That things were different, anyway. That something, some part of him, had been left behind when they’d escaped Asmodeus. Not that he expected Cas to play therapist, but if they were going to be hunting together, hunting _Dean,_ he had a right to know. But it was all bound up together – Selena’s corpse soaking the quilt with blood, and hearing himself scream and sob in Asmodeus’s dining room, and Asmodeus putting a blade in his hand. He didn’t know where to begin.

* * *

That evening they were in Cas’s bedroom, making up a list of what they needed to buy or steal to furnish Cas with the accoutrements of humanity – toothpaste, work boots, soap, deodorant, duffle bag, gun, _clothes_. They should have been doing something about Dean – reading up on the Knights of Hell, maybe, or trying to devise some kind of summoning spell, or _something_ – but the whole problem seemed, just then, like trying to move a mountain with a teaspoon, and in the end Sam told himself that he’d put Dean first for the whole summer: it wasn’t a betrayal to focus on Cas just for today. He didn’t really believe it, but he couldn’t bring himself to suggest getting back to work, either.

He hadn’t seen much of Gabriel since this morning. Probably he was in his room. He’d come out if he wanted company, Sam told himself: he wasn’t going to force his presence on Gabriel. He was debating with Cas about whether to put brass knuckles on the list – Cas insisted they were practical, Sam thought Cas wanting a pair was proof Dean was a bad influence on people – when he heard the knock on the door.

Inias stepped inside. He said, “It’s the Commander. Should I –?”

Cas’s eyelids fluttered – as if he were concentrating – and then he frowned. Could he still hear angel radio even now that he was human? He said to Inias, “She’ll want to see Gabriel. Tell her we’ll meet her in the library.”

“As you say,” said Inias. “She’ll want to see you too,” he added to Sam. “She gave orders not to leave you behind.” 

Gabriel was already waiting in the library, slouching in one of the chairs. Hannah looked the same as she had when Sam had seen her last. Still dressed in sensible business casual, though for some reason she was carrying a shoulder bag now. What did an angel have to tote around? “Commander,” said Inias.

“Inias. Castiel.” She hesitated, then said, “Sam Winchester. You look well.”

“Yeah, uh – mostly in one piece,” Sam said. “Thanks.”

She nodded. She hadn’t liked him when they’d last met, he reflected – nor Dean. It said something that she’d still given orders to save him. Maybe it was just on Cas’s account. But it was more than some of the angels would have done. He wondered if Gabriel was right – if she’d be willing to help them, if Cas asked her.

But he didn’t have time to think about that. “Gabriel,” said Hannah. Her voice was even, but her eyes were wide. Watchful. _She’s terrified of him,_ Sam thought. _Why?_ It was thanks to her that they’d been saved, after all.

Gabriel said, “Hey, uh – who are you again?”

Her throat bobbed. She said, “My name is Hannah. I was – I was responsible for arranging your liberation.”

“Member of the fan club, huh? Stick around, I’ll get you a signed 8 by 10.”

“We voted on it,” she said. “All of the angels.”

Gabriel raised his eyebrows. “You _voted_ ,” he repeated.

“The result was unanimously in favour of rescuing you.”

“I’m flattered.”

Hannah opened her bag. “I apologise for not coming to you immediately,” she said. “I was searching for Asmodeus. He’s disappeared. We haven’t been able to track him.” _Running scared,_ Sam thought, and was surprised at the flash of vindictive satisfaction that went through him. _Hiding from Heaven’s wrath._ “And then I had to speak with – well, I suppose you’d call her a mercenary. A Reaper. Inias passed on your instructions. I sent her to Norway as soon as possible.” She said, meekly, “This is yours.”

In her hand was a long silver blade.

Gabriel took it from her as if he expected it to melt away in his fingers. An archangel blade, Sam realised. Gabriel’s blade. He was reminded of the way Dean sometimes touched the Impala.

Gabriel said, “Since when do angels hire Reapers as couriers?”

“None of us can fly,” said Hannah. “Our wings were broken when the Gate of Heaven was closed.” She set down her empty bag. “Gabriel,” she said. “Heaven’s – not as you remember it. Michael and Lucifer are imprisoned in the Cage. And Raphael is dead.”

“So I’ve heard.” Cas looked briefly unhappy.

“Without the archangels to lead us, there’s been terrible disruption – chaos and factionalism – and the worst of us seeking power. Metatron – Bartholomew – Naomi. Since Metatron’s imprisonment, our brothers and sisters have asked me to guide them – to serve as Commander of the Host.” Her hands were trembling a little. Sam began to understand. Did she think Gabriel was going to – to what? Smite her for the presumption?

He said, “Wow. Sucks to be you.”

“It’s a great honour,” Hannah said, stiffly. “Castiel has been advising me. He believes a united Heaven is – is compatible with free will. With democracy.” She added, “He’s given me human texts to study. John Locke. Jeremy Bentham. And the _Schoolhouse Rock_ videos.”

Gabriel looked at her as if she had two heads.

“Well, that’s, uh, that’s great,” he said. “Democracy. Cool. Good for you. Let me know when you decline into decadence and corruption, I’ll join in.”

Hannah hesitated. “That’s just it,” she said. “Everyone thought you were gone – that _all_ the archangels were gone. And now you’ve returned. There are many in Heaven who would follow you without question. Who would fall on their knees before you. I –” faltering – “we’re _all_ wondering what you’re going to do.”

“Well, I was thinking St. Lucia. Maybe Fiji, I don’t know.”

“Gabriel,” said Hannah. “I’m talking about the Throne of Heaven. Do you intend to take your brother’s place? To rule over us?”

Gabriel turned his blade over in his hands.

“Yeah,” he said. “Uh, let me think. Nope.”

Something changed in Hannah’s face. Not disappointment, Sam realised. Relief. _How about that._ He wouldn’t have pegged her as the type to turn her back on the old way of doing things – to want to try something new. Maybe Cas had gotten through to her after all. She said, “I’ll inform the host of your decision.”

“Not even gonna try to talk me around?”

“Free will,” said Cas. “It goes for you too.”

“Lucky me,” said Gabriel. But his smile looked oddly pained.

* * *

Which was why, or partly why, he went looking for Gabriel that night – when everything went to hell.

He was in the bedroom he’d taken over, munching on the salt and vinegar chips that’d ended up at the back of a cupboard, because nobody in the Bunker liked them, and drinking Dean’s whisky out of an old Biggerson’s pint glass. A jolt of unexpected pain went through Sam at the sight of the glass. A memory had come back to him: a night out in Lebanon a few years ago, just after they’d moved into the Bunker, stuffing their faces with hot wings and cheese fries while Dean – who was four or five beers in at that point – rambled on about stealing candy from the 7-11 for Sam’s tenth birthday. There was a reason he’d been telling the story, but Sam couldn’t remember it now. _I’m telling you, man, I could clear out a whole aisle_. _Lightning Fingers Winchester, they used to call me._

 _Dude,_ said Sam, _nobody called you that._

 _They totally did. You just weren’t cool enough to hang out with my friends, so you didn’t hear ‘em._ Later, walking to the car, he’d produced the glass from inside his jacket. _Lightning Fingers,_ he said, wiggling his eyebrows. _I told you. Didn’t even see, did you?_

Gabriel’s voice brought Sam back to the present. “You from room service?” he said. “I don’t remember ordering anything.”

“I – I wanted to see how you’re holding up. It’s been a lot. The past few days.”

“Never been better.” Sam rolled his eyes. “I’m doing great, kiddo,” said Gabriel. “This is my _Shawshank Redemption_ moment.”

“Right. Crappy potato chips and cheap whisky. Does that even do anything for you?”

“You never know unless you try.” He gulped down the rest of the glass. “Sit down, take a load off.” The bed creaked as Sam sat. The archangel blade was lying on the nightstand. Gabriel gestured towards it. “You know Asmodeus was looking for this for years?” he said. “I hid it before I, uh – before I skipped town. Drove him crazy. He wanted the matching set.”

“Could he have used it?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Only an archangel can use it to kill another archangel,” he said. “Otherwise it’s just an extra-special angel blade. Limited edition, numbered series.”

“And you never told him where you’d hidden it.”

Gabriel gave him a tired look.

“Quit trying to make me into some kind of moral victor,” he said. “You want to know the truth? When Asmodeus first captured me, I figured, okay, not great, but give it a week, maybe two, and I’m out of here. I never thought –” His face twisted. “Point is – well, he couldn’t have used the blade to kill me, not at first, but then a couple of months went by, he started showing off his shiny new powers, and I thought – well, he’s full of archangel grace, why risk it? So – I erased my own memory.” Sam looked at him in surprise. “Or, well, technically I set up a block. Like encrypting computer files. Without the trigger, I _couldn’t_ tell him where it was, ‘cause I didn’t know. Look, I was a big fan of _Get Smart_ back in the day.”

“What was the trigger?”

Gabriel made a quick, nervous gesture towards his lips. And Sam understood. “This,” he said. “If these came out, it meant – meant I was –”

“Safe,” said Sam.

“Pretty much.” His voice was bright. But empty, somehow. Hollow. “Soon as you came into the room last night, it came back to me. Buried it in the middle of nowhere, Norway. I told Cas’s little buddy to get somebody to dig it up. _Et voila_.”

Sam shifted on the bed. He said, “It was a good plan.”

“I’m so glad you approve.” Apropos of nothing, he said, “Hannah still here?”

Sam blinked. “No. She, uh – she said she had duties in Heaven. She’ll be back tomorrow to talk to Cas.”

“Right,” said Gabriel. “Duties.” Something must have shown on Sam’s face. “Forget it. I don’t want the job. I _don’t,”_ he snapped. “And they wouldn’t want me, either. Not really. I mean, look at me. God’s own screw-up.”

“I don’t know,” said Sam, carefully. “I mean, from what Hannah was saying it sounded like a lot of the angels would follow you. If you asked.”

“’Cause _that’s_ what we need. Another civil war.” He shook his head. “I’m gonna go back to Heaven once I’m charged up again,” he said. “Proclaim to the Host that I’m giving up the crown. And if anybody goes, ‘No, Gabriel, please stay and command us, how can we resist your overpowering sexual magnetism,’ I’ll tell ‘em sure, fine, I command you to listen to Hannah. There you go.” He added, “I give the whole democratic experiment about three months, frankly, but it’ll buy her a little support.”

“That’s, uh, very responsible of you.”

Gabriel made a face at him. “And after that,” he said, “meeting up with some old friends, hopefully. And then – I don’t know.”

“What about Fiji?”

“Oh, it’s on the agenda. Probably.” He picked up his empty glass and set it down again. “You know, in some ways I envy you people,” he said. “You, Cas. I mean, not being mortal. Obviously. But your little Ghostbusters operation – at least you know what you’re doing next week.”

That, Sam reflected later, was what made him say it. The thought that he might, however obscurely, be doing something to help Gabriel. Might be doing something to make up for – 

And maybe, too, the irrational, hopeful thought that it had all been fated somehow, that the universe had thrown them back together for some particular purpose and not just because they’d both been unlucky enough to fall into Asmodeus’s hands. The same thought that had burnt in his brain during the Trials, even in the Cage, when he was capable of thinking. _All of this is happening for a reason._

He said, “What if there was something you could do?” 

Gabriel gave a thin sort of smile. “Listen – I’m not signing with the team here. I mean, thanks for the power-up, but I’m more of a free agent.”

“Just hear me out,” Sam said. “It’s about Dean.”

By the time he’d finished explaining, Gabriel’s smile was gone. He said, evenly, “You sure it’s Dean?”

“What?”

“I heard Asmodeus’s flunkies talking about the Knight of Hell. I figured it was a rumour. Or a bluff. You know. You get a low-level crossroads demon to possess a Winchester’s corpse, pretend you’ve got a knight on the payroll, scare off anybody who tries to screw with you.”

“It’s Dean,” said Sam. “Cas didn’t tell you –?”

“I asked him what happened to Thing One. He started crying. It was embarrassing.” He looked up at Sam. “You’re telling me Dean-o actually took the Mark of Cain?”

“Yeah,” said Sam. “Me and Cas – we didn’t even know he was alive at first. But now – we’re gonna find him. Bring him home and cure him. And if –” He couldn’t quite put it into words. “If you –”

But Gabriel was shaking his head. “You have _no_ idea what you’re dealing with,” he said. His voice was grimmer than Sam had ever heard it. “Maybe you could cure him –”

“We can. We found a ritual –”

“But you can’t get the Mark off his arm,” said Gabriel. “You cure him, he becomes human again, the Mark’ll keep on pushing him towards the dark side of the Force till he gets himself killed. And then he’ll come back as a Knight. Lather, rinse, repeat.”

_Oh God, Dean –_

But he hadn’t cracked all through those long weeks of hunting, and he wasn’t going to break now.

“We’ll deal with the Mark, too,” he said. “We’ll do whatever we have to – find a spell, a ritual, whatever. But we’re gonna get him back.” He felt better having said it out loud. As if speaking could make it so. “The Mark’s just a curse. We can break it. Gabriel, you can _help_ us –”

Gabriel’s eyes blazed with sudden rage. He sprang to his feet.

“Everything you’ve done,” he spat at Sam, “you still haven’t learnt _anything_ , have you? Nearly ending the world once wasn’t enough?” Sam stared at him. “The Mark isn’t just a curse,” Gabriel said. “It’s a lock. Like a – a cosmic padlock. You start trying to get the Mark off of Dean’s arm, you start picking the lock. And what it’s keeping sealed away – you don’t want getting out.”

“A lock,” Sam repeated.

“That’s right, Einstein. The lock to one very small, very secure extradimensional solitary cell.”

“Which holds – what, exactly?”

“It doesn’t have a name,” said Gabriel. “It’s just darkness. Pure darkness. And it’s old _._ Primordial. You thought Lucifer was bad? You let this baby out, it’s gonna start gobbling up – well, everything. _If_ you’re stupid enough to let it out.”

Sam reeled. What, he wondered, could possibly be worse than Lucifer? And with that thought came an irrational, wounded sort of feeling: what sort of God allowed something like that to exist?

But he’d given up trying to fathom God’s motives long ago.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. So – so we’ll be careful.”

Gabriel laughed bitterly.

“You selfish, reckless son of a bitch,” he said. “Nothing I’ve said has gotten through to you, has it? You’re gonna risk the whole world, humanity, everything, just so you can bring back Dean. _Again_.”

Sam said, “He’s my brother.”

“ _Shut up,_ ” snapped Gabriel – and anything else Sam might have said died unspoken as the electric thrum of grace washed over him. He flinched. It was all he could do not to cringe away. _Guess it’s restoring itself after all_. “Like you’re the only one who’s ever lost somebody,” Gabriel said. “All the blood on your hands from trying to save him – you’ve never once thought that it might not be worth it? That maybe you should figure out how to finally _grow up and let him go?”_ He shook his head. “Why am I still talking to you,” he said. “You won’t give up, will you? You never do.”

The words were out before he could think better of them. “If I gave up easy, you’d still be rotting in Asmodeus’s spare bedroom.”

Gabriel’s lips were a hard line.

“I should kill you,” he said. “Only way to make sure that lock never gets busted open. You won’t quit trying, otherwise.”

Sam swallowed. The jarring thought struck him that only the day before yesterday he’d held Gabriel in his arms in the woods – that they’d looked into each other’s eyes before escaping Asmodeus and been, for a moment, as close as if they’d been one person. Impossible to believe it now.

“Go ahead,” he said. “If you’re gonna do it, then do it. But I’ve gotta ask, Gabriel: when the hell did you start caring about saving the world?”

“Watch your mouth,” Gabriel spat.

Sam ignored him. “You could’ve faced Lucifer yourself,” he pressed on. A small, vicious part of him was almost glad. Almost revelled in finally having the chance to fling it in Gabriel’s face. “But I guess it was easier to let me do it. Let me fall into the Cage. And maybe – maybe that would’ve been fair enough. I mean, I broke it, I should be the one to fix it, right? But the truth is – I nearly didn’t. It was just luck that I got control long enough to jump into the Cage. Lucifer could’ve burned the world, all because you were too much of a coward to stand up to him. Because you decided to run instead.” He forced himself to look into Gabriel’s eyes. “So you tell me which of us is selfish,” he said.

The fury in Gabriel’s face was like nothing he’d ever seen before. The air thrummed and crackled. He thought, _Oh Jesus, he’s really gonna –_ and at the same time realised that till this second he hadn’t actually believed it.

_Dean, I –_

But the blast of grace he was expecting never came. A second later – with the sound of wingbeats – Gabriel was gone.

* * *

Hannah said, “He isn’t in Heaven any longer. He left as soon as he delivered his proclamation.” She put down the pen she’d borrowed. “It was very dramatic,” she said. 

“Well, that sounds like Gabriel,” said Cas. They were sitting at one of the library tables: Sam and Cas on one side, Hannah and Inias on the other. “Do you think any of the angels will refuse to obey? Try to instate him as ruler of the Host whether or not he wants the position?”

“Like Emperor Claudius?” said Sam. He’d watched _I, Claudius_ in college – one of Jess’s friends had had it on VHS.

“I don’t know,” said Hannah. “He was very clear that he didn’t want them to follow him. But –” She looked at them with large, liquid eyes. “It’s tempting,” she said. “To submit to a superior. No more doubt, no more dissent. Just obedience. Clarity of purpose. I can understand why they’d ask him to rule.”

Sam sighed. “I don’t think Gabriel’s really the guy to provide anybody with clarity of purpose,” he said. “Far as I could tell, he doesn’t even know what he wants to do.”

Hannah nodded, a little reluctantly. “And you?” she said to him. “Will you go after your brother?”

“I don’t think I’ve got a choice,” said Sam. “But what Gabriel said –”

He’d explained to her about the Mark of Cain – and about what it was apparently locking away. Hannah had been appalled. Sam couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy. The ancient darkness Gabriel had described had been, as far as she and the other rank-and-file angels were concerned, not much more than a scary story. Now suddenly she’d learnt that not only was it real, the only thing standing between it and the world was the Mark. She’d willingly shared everything the angels knew – but a half-page of notes, Sam thought to himself unhappily, looking at the pad in front of her, wasn’t much to go on.

“I don’t like the thought of – of experimenting on the Mark,” she said. “But the prospect of leaving something that important in the hands of the King of Hell –”

“Little as I trust him,” said Inias, “letting some sort of primordial entity eat the world isn’t in the King’s best interests, either. And he doesn’t know what the Mark means. What it does.”

“And _if_ he finds out about the Mark’s significance,” said Cas, “he’ll use it to extort Heaven. Or us. We can count on Crowley to press his advantage, if he thinks he has one.”

Sam felt cold. It was oddly similar to what Asmodeus had said the first time they’d talked in his dining room. And it wasn’t wrong.

“I think,” said Hannah, “it would be in everyone’s best interests to get Dean Winchester away from the King of Hell, to begin with. What happens after –”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Sam.

Hannah bowed her head. Then she said, “I meant to speak with you, Sam – before you told me about the Mark. You’ve done us a great service by aiding Gabriel’s escape.”

“You don’t want him as a ruler.”

“It doesn’t mean we didn’t want our brother back.” Her voice was gentle. Almost human. “If the forces of Heaven can help you,” she said, “we will. Not only on account of the Mark of Cain. For your sake.”

“What are you saying?”

“You returned our brother to us,” she said. “Let us help you find yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t worry, these two aren’t done with each other yet. Though they both need to work on their conflict resolution skills.
> 
> Leave a comment if you enjoyed! Or if you didn’t. Or come visit on [Tumblr!](https://havendale.tumblr.com/)


	7. Chapter 7

They were in Buffalo when the next dream came to him. Just over a week since Gabriel had left the Bunker. They’d spent the past few days cobbling together a summoning ritual that Cas thought might be able to bring Dean back to them, but either they’d done something wrong or Dean had some way of protecting himself. In any case, it hadn’t worked. Sam tried not to let his impatience get the better of him. Summonings were complicated magic, he told himself: he’d known it was a shot in the dark.

So they’d hit the road. Hannah’s scouts had turned up possible demonic omens in New York state, Florida, and northeast Georgia, and Sam had assigned himself and Cas to New York: not, he assured himself, because he didn’t want to come within a hundred miles of Asmodeus’s former lair, or at least not entirely, but because the omens in the South were weather-related, and the lead in Buffalo was a guy who’d turned up in the parking lot of a J.C. Penney with a stab wound in the neck and several organs ripped out of his corpse, and Sam wouldn’t put money on any of Hannah’s people being able to talk to the police without arousing suspicion. Anyway, it was good practice for Cas. _How To Win Friends and Influence People To Tell You about Gruesome Murders_. Cas wanted to be a hunter, and when it came to hunting it didn’t matter how good you were with a blade, or how a good a shot with a sawed-off: if you freaked out the civilians, they wouldn’t talk to you. And without intel, you got nowhere. Sam had gotten a lot further on some hunts with a smile than with a knife.

_I like your smile. You look like a movie star when you smile._

She’d kissed him only once, outside the door of the motel room. The last moment when she’d still thought he was just a regular Joe who’d decided to pick up the cute cashier.

He still hadn’t told Cas about any of it. He was beginning to think he never would. The fact was, Cas would absolve him, because he’d never been above using torture himself, and because he thought anything was an acceptable sacrifice to save Dean, and most of all, Sam thought, because Cas could never see anything but the best in him and Dean. He couldn’t imagine confiding in any of the hunters he knew, not about something this personal, and even if he had, they wouldn’t understand. In their books, another demon dead was a good thing, period, and never mind the circumstances. And Dean –

Well, Dean would have his own burdens to bear when they got him back. 

Anyway, he’d decided, he didn’t deserve to talk about it. To share the weight. _You’re gonna have to carry it by yourself,_ he thought, when he lay awake at night. _Even when this over, you’ll still carry it with you. For the rest of your life._

He was thinking still in terms of “when this is over”: imagining a future where, somehow, they’d dealt with the Mark, and hadn’t broken the world irreparably along the way. Where he and Dean and Cas were living in the Bunker, chasing down the things that went bump in the night. Where the worst they had to worry about was the occasional sprained ankle or crack on the head.

He wondered what had happened to Gabriel. His dreams had been his own again ever since Gabriel had left the Bunker: he hoped that meant Gabriel’s powers had fully restored themselves, and not –

Well, he wasn’t going to think about the alternative. He’d asked Hannah, but she didn’t know any more than he did. Wherever Gabriel was, he wasn’t in Heaven. 

In the meantime, they had a job to do. Cas had gone to talk to the victim’s brother, posing as a representative from corporate HQ wary of a potential lawsuit, and he’d texted Sam to say that things were going okay so far. Sam, having confirmed that the police didn’t have the first clue who’d done it or why, had come back to their motel. He lingered for a moment at the door, the key in his hand. _What if it’s nothing? Another dead end?_

 _Then we’ll try the next lead,_ he told himself. _And the next. As many as it takes._ At least they had Hannah on their side now.

He threw his suit jacket on the bed and got one of the Cup Noodles out of the cupboard and put a mug of water into the grungy little microwave to boil. He’d found that he could eat, usually, if he saw other people eating the same thing, or if his food came out of a sealed package or a can. Which meant a lot of shared meals at the Bunker – luckily Cas was turning out to be an okay cook, at least when he stuck to the recipe – and, on the road, a lot of extra-large pizzas, family-size salads, and breakfast platters. Cas would eat the first bite or two, declare out loud what he thought of it, and then Sam would grab his share. “You two are so cute,” a waitress cooed at them, when Cas pushed his plate of bacon and eggs across the table and handed Sam a fork. Sam flushed.

“We’re, uh – it’s not like that,” he said. 

“He’s my brother,” said Cas.

The waitress stared. “All righty then,” she said, after a moment. They didn’t go back to that diner.

He finished his dinner and opened his laptop to see if the local news sites had turned up anything new. They hadn’t. But Hannah’s people in Florida had emailed him to say that whatever was causing thunderstorms around Disney World wasn’t anything to do with Dean: more likely a disaster demon, judging by the sudden spike in MVAs over the past few weeks. Would Sam and Cas be all right if they spent a few days dealing with the problem? _No problem,_ Sam made himself write back, _do what you have to do._ After a moment’s thought, he began typing out what he remembered about the plane-crash demon from all those years ago. No doubt the angels knew it all already, but it couldn’t hurt.

Before he undressed for bed he switched on the TV to CNN and turned up the volume. Now and then he woke suddenly in the dark, and like a blow to the gut the certainty hit him that it had all been a vivid, impossible dream: that he was still in the cottage, lying on the bare mattress, and the faint, raspy breathing he heard from a few feet away was Gabriel’s. The TV helped. Sometimes, anyway. He was half-listening to a talking head bleating about oil prices when his head hit the pillow –

– and it _had_ been a dream, he realised sickly.

He was sitting on the floor of Asmodeus’s bedroom. It was exactly as he remembered: the old blood smeared on the walls, the gouge in the ceiling. He was so paralysed with horrified disbelief that it was minutes before he felt the strange layered-transparency sensation of somebody else’s misery.

Then he understood. He could have cried with relief.

He felt for the edge between them – and for the first time met resistance, as if something were batting him away. _Too goddamn bad,_ Sam thought: _you’re in my head, you’re going to talk to me –_ and Gabriel stood in front of him, glowering. “You’d think you’d learn to take a hint,” he snapped.

“Yeah, well, I can’t exactly lose your number,” Sam bit out. “What’s wrong with you?” Gabriel raised his eyebrows. “You’re dreaming. Which means you’re also sleeping. I thought your grace was gonna recharge.” And why in God’s name was he choosing to dream about _this_?

“It will,” said Gabriel, irritably, “it’s just taking a while. Long while, apparently. I’ve been busy.”

“Busy. Doing _what_?”

“Meeting old friends. Like I said.” It was clear he wasn’t going to elaborate. “And spying on you. Looks like you and the Man Who Fell to Earth haven’t managed to break the world yet. Dean-o still in the wind?”

Sam took a breath. Getting into another shouting match wouldn’t help anything, he told himself. He wasn’t the twenty-two-year-old kid who went off at every little thing anymore. One of them had to be reasonable.

He said, “Pretty much. Right now we’re just trying to get him away from Crowley.”

“And then you’re gonna start working on the Mark.”

“You know,” Sam said, as evenly as he could manage, “this is all kind of familiar, isn’t it? So where are we going? Are you gonna try torturing me in my dreams again till I agree to do what you want?” Gabriel flinched. “You know what? Everything I’ve done this summer to try to save Dean – I’m sure as hell not proud of it. And if it comes down to Dean or the – the world – then I’ll say no. Then I’ll back off. But till then – I’m still gonna try to save him. I have to.”

“Oh look,” said Gabriel, “it can be taught.”

But his eyes had softened a little.

“You know,” he said, “in all fairness to me, I didn’t plan on it being you doing the swan dive. Into the Cage, I mean,” when Sam frowned at him, not understanding. “I figured you’d come up with some zany scheme, trick Lucy back in there while he was still wearing last season’s outfit. Sucks for that guy, but his brain was probably already melted. I didn’t think it was gonna be you.”

“It wasn’t just me. Our half-brother – Adam – it’s a long story,” Sam said. “He was Michael’s vessel. He’s, uh – he’s still down there. And since we can’t exactly crack the Cage open again –”

“And here I was thinking the long-lost relative plot was kind of unrealistic on _Days of Our Lives_ ,” said Gabriel. He hesitated. “I just wanted you to know,” he said. “I didn’t plan on leaving you to take the hit.”

It should have been enough. But –

“That’s still how it shook out,” said Sam.

Gabriel recoiled. Then he gave a sharp laugh. “You want me to admit I screwed up?” he said. “Fine. I’m a coward. All I do is run.” He looked around the filthy room. “At least you have the satisfaction of knowing I got what I deserved.”

_I didn’t expect anybody to storm the castle looking for me._

“Nobody deserves that,” said Sam. He made himself meet Gabriel’s eyes – wide with surprise. He wasn’t sorry, exactly, for what he’d said back at the Bunker. But he wasn’t going to delude himself that he hadn’t said it at least partly because he knew it was the best way he had of hurting Gabriel – of getting his own back. _Time to start being honest with yourself, Sam._ “For what it’s worth,” he said, “we’d have come for you. Dean and me. If we’d known.”

Gabriel was silent for about ten seconds.

At last he said, quietly, “Thanks.”

Sam nodded.

“Oh, and it’s a werewolf, by the way.” Sam cocked his head. “The, uh – the thing you’re hunting? Not a demon. Werewolf.”

“Werewolves eat people. Our guy was stabbed.”

“They eat people’s hearts. And other organs. Which this one did. Knifed the guy while he was human, ripped out the organs for later. Takeout food.”

That was a nice, disgusting mental image. And it meant another bust. Not to mention the time they were going to lose dealing with the wolf. Sam wondered for a moment if he could hand the case over to someone – but the thought of passing the buck grated. He said, “Guess Cas’ll be going on his first wolf hunt.”

“Look at you, planning field trips and everything. You crazy kids have fun.” Gabriel gave him a strange, almost tender look. “See you around,” he said, and almost before he realised what was happening Sam was awake.

The room was dark. Cas had come back: Sam heard his quiet snoring. CNN was midway through a story about the Scottish referendum. He yawned and reached for the glass of water on the nightstand – and then started. Stacked on top of his notepad and the Stephen King he’d been half-heartedly rereading on the road was a book he hadn’t put there: a dog-eared ‘50s porno paperback. Some trashy girls-behind-bars stuff. _Very funny,_ he thought to himself, and was about to toss it into his bag – God forbid he have to explain it to Cas – when the slip of paper tucked inside the cover caught his eye. He pulled it out. On top, in ballpoint pen, was written:

_To my favourite cellmate,_

_G._

And underneath –

He nearly dropped it. “Cas,” he called. “Hey, Cas, wake up!”

“What –?” Cas shot up in bed, his hand darting to the knife he’d taken to keeping under the pillow. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing, it’s okay. Just – look at this.” Sam switched on the lamp. Now that he’d looked at the paper properly, he’d realised it was a receipt – from what appeared to be a French lingerie shop – but that wasn’t what had caught his attention. He jabbed his finger at the sigil drawn on the back. “I talked to Gabriel. In my dream. And when I woke up this was here. I remember this. It’s what Metatron was using last year to summon angels, isn’t it? The angel siren. And there’s a list –”

Cas rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “It’s not just any sigil,” he said. “It’s the Horn of Gabriel. And this list: fairy bones, cat’s blood, myrrh –” He looked at Sam. “It’s a modified summoning spell,” he said. “Meant to summon a Knight of Hell.”

Sam was speechless. He took the paper back from Cas’s fingers and turned it over.

 _Thank you,_ he prayed. _Gabriel, thank you –_

* * *

Sam pushed back his notepad and his battered copy of Cassell’s Latin Dictionary and rubbed at his eyes. He’d been working on his translation for about an hour, and even with the black coffee he’d guzzled before they left the motel, a headache was starting to pulse in his left temple. It was difficult, complicated work. But there was a sort of peace in it, too – in knowing that they were on the right path. A couple more days, a week at most, and they’d be ready to bring Dean home. Across the table Inias was scribbling a design on graph paper. He’d been one of Cas’s students back in the day, apparently – which explained, Sam supposed, why they got on so well – and he was one of the few experts on devil’s traps left in Heaven. Hannah had agreed to let him remain on Earth as long as Cas needed his help. 

They were in Santa Clara, California. When they’d got into town two days ago Sam had been startled on walking up the library – a squat building in Mission Revival style – to find the doors plastered with notices from the health authority advising them, in block capitals, that the building was closed pending further notice on account of toxic mould.

“Metatron set traps,” said Cas. “In case anyone stumbled upon his collection. Hannah and I – we, uh, thought it advisable to keep the humans away. I printed the signs off the Internet. And a badge. The staff here were very cooperative.”

Metatron had been lying when he’d hinted that Cas’s grace might be in Santa Clara. But he hadn’t, as it turned out, been lying about using the library as his personal storage depot. The strange thing was, most of what he’d taken such pains to hide was junk. Ratty copies of _Beyond the Horizon_ and the collected plays of Ibsen and half a dozen Horatio Alger novels; grubby old notebooks full of scribbling in a language even the angels didn’t recognise; a book that promised to teach you conversational Thai in two weeks; a whole box of VHS tapes that turned out to be episodes of _Frasier_ and _Blackadder Goes Forth._ Sam was reminded, not pleasantly, of the time he and Dean had had to deal with the hostile ghost of a ninety-four-year-old widow who’d died alone in her three-room Chicago apartment, surrounded by stacks of newspapers, old Tupperware, and broken blenders and toasters – with no fewer than six bolts on the door in case anyone tried to break in and steal something.

But in a back closet of the Santa Clara Public Library there’d been a stack of cardboard cartons, and when Cas lifted the lid off one of them Sam saw that the books piled inside were older, much older, than anything even in the Men of Letters library. They smelled of dust and leather and faintly of something decomposing.

“They’re the property of the Host,” said Inias. “The word of God dictated to human prophets. We’ll return them to Heaven once we’re certain Metatron’s spells have been disabled.”

It wouldn’t be for a while. There was a possibility, Sam gathered, that Metatron had set some kind of time bomb: something that would only trigger once the books were returned to Heaven. In the meantime, Hannah had invited Sam and Cas to make what use of them they could. Comprehensive as it was, the Bunker library wasn’t exactly overflowing with practical information on the Knights of Hell – and Cas had remembered, from his trip out to California earlier in the summer, that some of what the prophets had written had related to devil’s traps. It was a way for the devout to test their faith, he explained to Sam. You summoned a demon, let it tempt you with promises of having your wildest dreams fulfilled, and proved to yourself that you could hold fast against it. Comparable to the religious fanatics of the nineteenth century who’d hired prostitutes purely to show that they couldn’t be tempted by lust. Sam thought the whole thing was bullshit, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth – not after Cas had leafed through the first tome and begun making neat, purposeful notes on a legal pad.

It had been Cas who’d stopped him from using Gabriel’s spell the same night he’d woken to find it on the bedside table. He’d been halfway through pulling on his boots – ready to head back to the Bunker – when Cas said, “We can’t summon him, Sam. Not yet.”

“What the hell –? We can cure him. Cas, this is _Dean_ we’re talking about.”

“Do you think I don’t want him back as much as you do?” snapped Cas. “I –” He broke off, looking suddenly miserable. Sam felt a pang of guilt. He’d never figured out exactly what was going on between Cas and his brother: whether Cas had ever said anything, whether Dean had turned him down flat or just pretended not to understand. But anyone could see how much Cas loved him. “Once we start to cure him,” said Cas, “once he’s halfway to being human again, there’s a risk he’ll be able to break out of a devil’s trap. We need to come up with some sort of warding that’ll keep him confined long enough to cure him completely.”

“Can you do that?”

“I specialised in designing devil’s traps when I was a soldier,” said Cas. “Summoning rituals are complex. Delicate. Traps are comparatively straightforward. All I need is time. And possibly a research assistant,” with a significant look. Sam smiled in spite of himself. “Gabriel’s spell will work,” Cas said, gently. “We’ll get him back, Sam. I promise. But we need to be prepared.”

To which end, Sam had spent the past three days translating Mediaeval Latin. The script was barely legible, and half the manuscript was in a convoluted kind of jargon – he was keeping a running list of abbreviations on the left side of his notepad. But it was coming together. At last, thank God and Gabriel, it was coming together. 

He hadn’t shared a dream with Gabriel again. He was beginning to think he never would. Surely by now Gabriel’s grace was on its way to regenerating. He prayed sometimes, before he headed to bed at night or after he got up in the morning, while he made coffee or brushed his teeth: _Hey, man. Hope you’re doing okay. Thinking about you._

_Keep safe._

_* * *_

The drowsiness hit him as he got up to stretch his legs. He staggered, a jumble of thoughts lighting up in his brain – _something in the coffee, a stroke, something I ate –_ and half a second later found himself standing at the far end of the library. Inias was gone. Gabriel leant against the wall, watching him.

 _Dreaming again,_ Sam realised. But this wasn’t one of Gabriel’s memories. He said, “What’s going on? You’re still sleeping –?”

Gabriel shook his head. “Hello? Archangel? I don’t need to sleep to walk in your dreams.”

“Okay, so – what? You’re just stopping by to shoot the shit?”

“You should be so lucky,” said Gabriel. His face darkened. “I’m here to warn you, Sam,” he said. “See, me and Asmodeus – long as he has my grace in his blood, we have a connection. Kind of like you and me. I use my powers for more than a second or two, he can sense it. Track me. It’s why I’ve been lying low the past while. But – there’s a flipside.”

Sam blinked. Then he got it.

“It goes both ways,” he said. “So –”

“Not just a pretty face, are you? _So,_ ” said Gabriel, “I’ve been keeping tabs on him. And guess where he’s heading right now?”

Sam’s stomach seemed to turn inside out.

 _No,_ he thought reflexively. _No, please. I got away from him –_

 _Really, Sammy?_ somebody hissed in his ear. _You really thought it was that easy?_

Out loud he said, “He can’t be as strong as he was. He hasn’t fed on your grace since –”

“Since we pulled off our escape from Alcatraz, right. Thing is, the princes were Hell’s heavy hitters back in the day. Lucy’s personal knockoff archangels. And this particular model’s still charged up. I’m not you, but I wouldn’t like those odds.” He let that sink in. “I’m telling you to _run_ , Sam,” he said. “Go to ground. I’m not strong enough to snap you and the gang to Lebanon – so you need to run. Get to your doomsday bunker and push a couple of chairs in front of the door. Get me?”

Sam did the math. Fifteen hundred miles, give or take, to Lebanon. About twenty-four hours’ drive. Less if they were lucky.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. What about you? Are you gonna be okay?”

“I’ll be fine. _I,_ ” said Gabriel, “am the distraction. Think of me as the Bandit to your Snowman.” Sam saw him swallow. “I’ve been staying off Asmodeus’s radar,” he said. “But now – I’m gonna light up the sky like a comet. He isn’t gonna be able to resist coming after me. Which buys _you_ time to get the hell out of here.”

Sam shook his head. He should have felt better, he thought, knowing he had an archangel on his side. But all he felt was cold dread: now not just for himself and Cas and Inias, but for Gabriel, too. He said, “What if he catches up with you?”

“Aw, you care.” Gabriel gave him a brief, strained smile, then – before Sam could react – stood on his toes and pressed his lips to Sam’s. “Try not to die, hot stuff,” he said. “I don’t have enough juice to bring you back.”

He snapped his fingers – 

– and Sam lifted his head from the table to see Inias peering at him.

“You fell unconscious,” he said. “And then you started snoring. Is that normal for humans?”

“Not in this case,” said Sam. Inias’s brow furrowed. “Get Cas. _Now._ ”

* * *

They peeled out of Santa Clara a little before 10:30. Not quite a quarter of an hour after Gabriel’s warning. It would’ve been sooner, but Inias had insisted on bundling up the whole heap of manuscripts and notes and scribbled diagrams, while Sam either snapped at him or – if only to hurry him up – shoved things into the cardboard file boxes. “These texts are irreplaceable,” Inias said, the fourth or so time Sam bitched at him. “If Asmodeus destroys the library –” _Who gives a damn?_ Sam thought.

But finally, finally, they’d got the car packed, Cas at the wheel and Inias in the back, and Sam sitting shotgun, an angel blade in his lap, and they were on the road, speeding towards safety. Towards home.

 _Gabriel,_ he prayed, _we’re on our way. On I-80._

He still wasn’t altogether sure why Gabriel was sticking his neck out for them. Maybe he just wasn’t cold-blooded enough to leave his brothers to Asmodeus. Or maybe he thought he owed Sam something. But when the chips were down –

_We’ll be fine. Asmodeus can’t find us. Even if he does, Gabriel’ll come for us –_

_You sure, champ? ‘Cause, uh, hate to say it, but my little brother doesn’t exactly have a great track record with coming through when it counts._

He bit his tongue.

 _We’ll be fine,_ he told himself. _Now get a fucking grip._

By the time they got to Reno he’d chewed the inside of his cheek bloody. He got out with Cas and stood drumming his fingers on the roof of the car while Cas, dressed in civilian clothes – Walmart jeans and a thrifted jacket – pumped gas. It struck him that Cas had hardly said two words since Sam had barked at him that they had to go. “You okay?” he said.

“Fine,” said Cas. “I –” He turned to look at Sam, his blue eyes suddenly fierce. “Whatever happens, Sam,” he said, “I won’t let him hurt you. I will die before I let him lay hands on you again.”

Sam’s heart clenched.

“Nobody’s gonna die,” he said. He clasped Cas’s shoulder. “We’re gonna get home. It’s gonna be fine. Okay?”

They sped through the desert shrubland, passing telephone poles, broken-down fences, huge lurid billboards: FLY AWAY WITH US. REJOICE: HE IS RISEN. ENJOY COCA-COLA. Sam’s fingers left smears of sweat on the hilt of the angel blade. The sun beat down through the windscreen. Cas stripped off his jacket and tossed it into the backseat.

_Gabriel, man, don’t do anything stupid –_

* * *

Later on, looking back, it struck him that there was no moment of anticipation: not even an instant’s blurry understanding of what was about to happen. One second he was reaching to turn on the radio, thinking at least it would drown out the static in his head –

– and the next he was blinking his eyes against the sunlight. The passenger door was open and Inias was bending over him. “What –?”

“Hellhounds,” said Inias. Sam looked at him in blank horror. “One of them charged the car. We went off the road.” The windscreen had buckled inwards, he saw, and was latticed with huge, ugly cracks. “You hit your head.”

“Where’s Cas?”

Inias nodded towards the driver’s side window. Sam fumbled with the seatbelt, got unsteadily to his feet, and pushed past Inias. A few hundred yards away a huge fire-and-brimstone billboard loomed up: REPENT AND TURN TO GOD. Cas was standing on the other side of the car, apparently alone, his blade in his hand. Only he wasn’t alone: not really. The air was full of a deep, resonant growling. Cas’s face was white and damp with sweat.

“One at eleven o’clock,” said Inias, coming up beside him. “Two at three o’clock.” Sam nodded. The horrible growling seemed to vibrate in his bones. But the hounds hadn’t moved to attack. Not yet.

“Samuel,” said a drawling voice.

Sam’s head jerked ‘round. Asmodeus had appeared out of thin air about twenty yards away. _Of course he can teleport, too. Figures._ Mickey was standing at his right hand. No sign of Coco. He wondered distantly if Gabriel had actually killed her the night they’d fled the cottage.

“I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again, boy,” said Asmodeus. “Seems to me I owe you your just deserts.”

He whistled. The growling stopped. Then it returned, deeper than before. Sam’s fingers tightened around the hilt of his blade – but the hounds still weren’t moving. He kept his eyes on the place where he guessed they must be. They’d kick up dust as soon as they moved. Even a half-second’s warning was better than nothing. To Asmodeus he said, “Crowley know you’re borrowing his dogs?”

“Oh, these ain’t Crowley’s,” said Asmodeus. “Old friend of mine breeds ‘em as a hobby. I don’t like dogs, myself. They’re messy. But they get the job done.” He smiled. “I’m gonna make you suffer,” he said.

“Yeah? And when my brother finds out –?”

“I ain’t planning to let myself be hunted by the Knight of Hell,” said Asmodeus. “He ain’t the only one’s gonna be searching for me. Soon’s I’m through here, I’m gonna remove myself to someplace neither Heaven nor Hell can find me. But in the meantime –”

Sam never saw what signal he gave the hounds. Maybe it was purely telepathic. Clouds of dust exploded in front of him as they lunged – and then there was no time to speak, no time even to think. He was down in the scrub, lying on his back with one of the monsters on top of him. Its hot, foul breath filled his mouth and nostrils. He slashed upwards with the angel blade. There was a high, hurt whine – it sounded gut-wrenchingly like an ordinary dog – and something wet and warm spattered on him. But it was still alive: it panted harshly, dripping foam onto Sam’s shirt –

And then it lit up, its skeleton outlined as if in neon, and blood gushed from the wound in its back. Inias shoved the corpse away and pulled Sam to his feet.

“Cas,” Sam gasped out, “help Cas –”

Inias could see the hounds, at least, and right now Cas was fighting blind. Inias nodded. Sam lurched forward – and before he could take a proper breath something struck him in the side and drove the last of the air from his lungs. Asmodeus grabbed hold of him and flung him down in the dirt. Sam clutched at his ankle – trying, futilely, to throw him off balance. Asmodeus kicked him away.

“Come on,” he said, “there ain’t no use fighting me.” He kicked again at Sam’s ribs.

“What’s wrong,” Sam gasped out, “no agony booth treatment today?”

“Frankly, it’s more satisfying to see the dogs rip you apart. I want you to die _slow_ , son.”

Sam blinked sweat and tears from his eyes. _No, you don’t_. He couldn’t have said where exactly the thought came from. But he was as sure that Asmodeus was lying as he was of the earth beneath his body. _You’re saving your power._ His stolen grace must already be running low: hadn’t Sam been shocked at how quickly Cas had burnt through the grace he’d taken from the angel he’d killed?

But what difference did it make? His eyes flicked to Inias – crumpled on the ground next to Cas. The back of Cas’s shirt was soaked in blood. Mickey towered over them. The hounds were snarling. Sam swallowed hard against the urge to vomit.

 _Saving power – for_ what?

Then he understood.

“Gabriel,” he gasped out – Cas had said once that it was easier to hear prayers when they were spoken out loud – “Gabriel, listen, whatever you hear, stay away from here. You hear me? Stay the hell away –”

Asmodeus began to laugh.

“It ain’t no use,” he said. “He and I – we’re connected. I felt him blaze through the sky this morning. I could’ve caught up with him soon’s he took flight, but I like to choose my own field of battle.” He brushed the dust from the front of his jacket. “I will say, Samuel: you’ve a talent for bringing out the best in people. Never would’ve thought I’d see Gabriel riding to anybody’s rescue. When I let the hounds at you,” he said, his voice dropping, “you go on and scream, boy. Let him hear you.”

The blood was pounding in his ears. _Gabriel, stay away._ Sam’s fingers were still locked around the hilt of the angel blade. _Please God, let him stay away._ Asmodeus smirked down at him. He opened his mouth –

And Sam lunged up and forward.

The angel blade sank into Asmodeus’s side, just under the ribcage. Asmodeus gasped soundlessly and staggered back. Any other demon, it would have been a killing blow – but Asmodeus would never die that easily. His hand went to the hilt: an instant later the blade was in his hand, dripping red.

“You don’t learn, do you,” he spat. “This blade can’t kill an archangel.” And now, Sam realised, now it was really the end: in a second the hounds would spring forward, would be on him, snapping and tearing – and there was a sort of rightness in that, he thought crazily, that he should die the same way his brother had, all those years ago –

But the hounds didn’t move.

He didn’t realise he’d shut his eyes till he forced them open again. Asmodeus had crumpled to the ground as if somebody, an enormous somebody, had flicked a finger and knocked him off his feet.

“Listen,” he heard, “I knew archangels. Some of ‘em were friends of mine. Pal, you’re no archangel.”

“Gabriel,” said Sam, sick with dread. He’d bitten partly through his tongue: he spat out a mouthful of blood. Gabriel stood with his hands in his jacket pockets. He was whistling something that Sam recognised, after a second or two, as the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”.

“And here he is _,_ ” said Asmodeus, picking himself up. “Our guest of honour.”

Gabriel stalked towards him. “Hiya, Boss Hogg.” He snapped his fingers and Asmodeus fell to his knees again. “You miss me?”

More blood dripped from Sam’s mouth.

“Gabe, get the hell out of here,” he said, “he’s –”

But Asmodeus was already raising his hand. He made a quick gesture – and then, as Sam had already half-known he was going to do, he flung a bright ball of flame down about two yards from Gabriel’s feet, as if he were lobbing a tennis ball. A circle of fire erupted from the earth.

Asmodeus smiled.

“Matter of fact, son,” he purred, “I did miss you. Very much.”

* * *

Sweat dripped into his eyes. The sun was high above the horizon: not even a breath of wind stirred the dust. His shirt clung to his body. His brain moved from one useless thought to another: _Maybe if I threw something onto the flames – my shirt, one of my shoes – maybe if I could distract Asmodeus somehow –_

Asmodeus didn’t seem to notice the heat. He was standing in front of Gabriel. “What’s the matter, son,” he said, “cat got your tongue? We took a considerable amount of trouble on your account. Laid down circles in holy oil all along this stretch of road.”

Gabriel hadn’t said a word since Asmodeus had trapped him. His eyes were wide and blank – as if he was somewhere else far away.

“I’m gonna make this easy for you,” said Asmodeus. “If you’ll oblige me –” He held up the angel blade he’d taken from Sam, then threw it over the wall of fire to land at Gabriel’s feet. “You cut out the better part of your grace and come home with me, and your friends can go on their way. No pursuit, no revenge. I give my word.”

 _And what’s that worth, huh?_ thought Sam. He glanced at Cas and Inias again. Inias had gotten to his knees and stripped off his suit jacket to put under Cas’s head. Sam couldn’t tell if Cas was conscious or not. He was still alive, at least. Inias wouldn’t have tended to a corpse. Inside the fire circle the angel blade gleamed in the dirt. It wasn’t capable of killing Gabriel. Not now. But there were worse things than dying.

A stray thought nagged at him. Something to do with the blade. But he didn’t have time to dissect it. Asmodeus was speaking again.

“Now, you’ve never been particularly inclined towards self-sacrifice,” he said to Gabriel, “but even you can understand a no-win situation. Nobody’s coming to save you. I don’t doubt your friends are praying to the Host of Heaven – but ain’t no angel can get here fast enough. If you elect to disobey, your friends here are gonna die one by one, and then – well, you know what I can do to you.” For the first time Gabriel seemed to focus properly on Asmodeus. Shudders were shaking his body. As if it had just occurred to him, Asmodeus added, “Don’t cut _too_ deep, son. I’m gonna have to take a lot from you, once we’re back together.”

_Oh, God, please –_

He heard a faint, pained groan – and then a heavy thump of flesh on flesh. _Cas?_ His head whipped round just in time to see Mickey throw Inias to the ground.

“Leave him,” snapped Asmodeus. “He’s gonna die slow.” He stalked over, grabbed a fistful of Inias’s hair, and pulled his head up. “Guess you’re gonna be the demonstration,” he said. “Gabriel! You watching this?”

Gabriel didn’t speak. Cas groaned again. His eyes were open. _You sick son of a bitch –_ Inias didn’t deserve to die like this, slow and painful. Cas didn’t deserve to see it happen. _Please –_ Asmodeus tightened his fingers, and Inias began to choke. _Why don’t you just cut Gabriel’s throat yourself and get it over with?_

And at the same time, the answer struck him:

 _He’s scared of Gabriel. He_ had _to trap him. He saved his power just in case it didn’t go as planned – but he doesn’t want to risk fighting him. He wouldn’t try to capture Gabriel at all if he wasn’t terrified of what Gabriel might do to_ him, _now he’s free._

And something else, the thought that had been nagging at him since Asmodeus had thrown the angel blade into the circle of fire:

_He doesn’t know about the archangel blade. He thinks it’s still missing._

All of which added up to: well, nothing. Gabriel was still trapped. Sam didn’t have a weapon. And Inias was as helpless as if he’d been human. He gagged pitifully, his face tinged purple. _Oh Christ._ A detached part of Sam’s mind wondered what exactly Asmodeus was doing to him – simple strangulation wouldn’t kill an angel – and wondered also how long it would take him to die. He hoped it wasn’t very long.

“Asmodeus –!”

Mickey’s voice. Sam started – and then stared.

_Cas, what the hell –?_

Neither of the demons had been watching Cas. A human without a weapon, too badly hurt even to get to his feet, wasn’t a threat. But now Cas was dragging himself, inch by painful inch, towards the circle of fire.

“What are you _doing_ , boy?” said Asmodeus. He dropped Inias and stepped past him. The fury had gone out of his voice. He sounded almost amused. Cas dragged himself another inch. “Tell you the truth, after our last conversation on the phone, I thought you’d be dead by now. But you picked humanity, huh?”

He prodded Cas’s ribs with the toe of his boot.

“And look where that got you,” he said. “Crawling in the dirt.”

Cas glared up at him.

“It has its upsides,” he spat.

And he reached out and slammed his right hand down on the wall of fire.

The world exploded around Sam. He squeezed his eyes shut just as a blast of light and terrible, echoing sound struck him: the beat of an archangel’s wings. He thought, frantically, _the blade Gabriel he doesn’t know you’ve got the archangel blade,_ and, _just run just get out of here_ and, at the back of his head, selfishly, shamefully, _please don’t leave us._

Then – as quickly as a TV screen snapping off – the sound was gone. He opened his eyes and found himself lying on his left side. The blast had knocked him down.

Mickey was slumped beside him, beginning to stir. He’d managed to keep hold of an angel blade: it shone palely in his hand. He must have taken it from Cas or Inias.

Sam reacted on instinct. He lunged at Mickey and grappled for the blade. Mickey, disoriented, jabbed wildly at his eyes and tried to roll out from under him. An image flashed in his brain – Mickey’s foot stomping on Gabriel’s hand. He dug his nails into the demon’s wrist. His grip slackened – and then Sam had hold of the blade, and before he’d taken another breath he stabbed into the base of Mickey’s throat. The demon fell back underneath him.

He was panting hard. He tried to pull himself to his feet, and found that his knees wouldn’t obey: it was as if the cartilage and bone had been turned to water. The horizon tilted dizzyingly. Several yards away Inias was fighting with something Sam couldn’t see, which he realised in a distant way must be the last of the hellhounds. But before he could try forcing himself up again his eyes snapped to the two figures in the shade of the billboard.

Gabriel had the archangel blade. He was slashing at Asmodeus, driving him back. One fast, brutal cut caught Asmodeus on the shoulder, and he groaned in pain. Blood stained his suit from shoulder to hip. Gabriel raised his hand –

But this time Asmodeus didn’t falter. Somehow he’d got hold of the blade that he’d thrown into the circle: he smashed the hilt into Gabriel’s face, a blow that seemed to shake the earth itself, and Gabriel reeled. “You can’t just snap your fingers and kill me,” snarled Asmodeus. “I ain’t one of those flies you like to swat for fun. I fight back.”

Gabriel’s right eye was shut, crusted over with blood. _Bleeding,_ Sam thought, _he’s bleeding again, why –_

The answer came to him almost as soon as he’d thought the question. Gabriel had used up most of his regenerating grace getting Asmodeus’s attention, first of all, and then coming to their rescue. He’d been hoping to scare Asmodeus into backing down: he hadn’t banked on having to fight for his life. He’d got a couple of licks in, either because Asmodeus had let him or because he’d had enough grace left, but now –

Asmodeus lunged at Gabriel. The archangel blade flew out of his hand: where it landed, Sam couldn’t see. He tried again to push himself to his feet, staggered forward, and managed, with an effort, to keep upright. Gabriel had Asmodeus by the collar, was battering at him wildly while Asmodeus snarled and clawed at his hands. Sam had a half-second’s glimpse of something huge and terrible – _a thousand eyes –_ and then it melted away. Maybe it had been only his imagination. He knew with dreadful certainty that it was pure desperation behind the blows: if Asmodeus got hold of the archangel blade Gabriel was as good as dead.

He managed a few more steps. His path was bringing him closer to Asmodeus and Gabriel, but neither of them paid him any attention.

_Let me see it, please God, let me see it –_

The waste of scrub stretched out before him. In the distance Inias was lying still. He must have somehow managed to kill the hellhound: it would surely have attacked Sam if it had still been alive. His eyes swept frantically up and down.

 _For the love of fucking_ God _, let me see it –_

And then he did. A silver flash in the dirt.

He tried to run, fell, scrambled forward on hands on knees. He was vaguely aware of sickening wrongness inside him, of something moving, coming loose. He put a hand to his stomach and felt gruesome wetness. It occurred to him to wonder what Mickey might have done to him. You didn’t always notice when you took a hit: adrenaline could shield you for a while. Till you dropped, anyway. _Never mind._ He was almost there.

Gabriel screamed. The world seemed to rattle as if shaken by a sonic boom. In the same instant the metal of the blade met Sam’s fingers.

_Only an archangel can use it –_

“I’m gonna _rip you apart_ ,” Asmodeus snarled. Gabriel’s face was bruised and bloody. Just then he didn’t look like an angel. He looked small, human, and terrified. “You’re _mine,_ Gabriel. I broke you. And I ain’t gonna let you go again. This time I’m gonna tear those wings of yours clean off.”

 _You didn’t break anything,_ Sam thought, and his fury was enough that he could do what he’d thought was impossible: could force himself to his feet one last time. Another voice, the soft, cold voice he’d never managed to silence permanently, probably never would, whispered, _You just don’t give up, do you, Sammy?_

 _Never,_ he told it. _Never._

“Hey,” he called out, “hey, you guys forget about me?”

Asmodeus whirled round. Sam saw flashes of things. The fire-and-brimstone billboard, the greyish-brown waste around them. Asmodeus’s eyes, burning yellow. The blade was heavy in his hand.

_Only an archangel can use it to kill another archangel. But you’re no archangel, are you? Not all the way._

One shot. Miss and they were dead. Or worse.

Asmodeus raised his hand – pain worse than anything he remembered exploded in Sam’s throat and lungs – but it was too late, too late, and he stumbled forward, choking, gasping, and with a last desperate exertion of will drove Gabriel’s blade into Asmodeus’s gut.

* * *

He woke in the shade. Somebody’s fingers were in his hair; he kept his eyes closed, liking the feeling, liking also the movement of wind on his face, which proved that wherever he was, he wasn’t a prisoner – and then he remembered and started up and felt a wrench in his stomach. “Cas –” His tongue was thick, his mouth as dry as if he’d swallowed a mouthful of earth. “Where’s Cas? And Inias –”

“Relax,” said Gabriel. “They’re fine. I used most of what was left of my grace healing them. And, you know, getting rid of the highway patrol. Cas and his little buddy are trying to get the car started.” He hadn’t taken his hand away from Sam’s hair. “I knocked you out,” he said. “Wasn’t strong enough to heal you all the way, but I, uh, put things in motion. Figured you’d rather take a nap while parts of you were growing back. Inias would’ve done it, but he’s a hot mess right now, so –”

“Thanks.” He moistened his dry lips. “Are you okay?”

“Swell, Sam.”

Which didn’t tell him anything. “Asmodeus, is he –?”

“Oh, he’s still alive,” said Gabriel. “Mostly.” There was something about his voice that Sam didn’t like. “Your Inigo Montaya impression with my sword didn’t kill him. But,” cheerfully, “it took him down long enough for me to get the drop on him.” Sam put out a hand, meaning to push himself to his feet, and stopped short, gasping: an electric shock of pain ran up his body. “Yeah,” said Gabriel, “you should probably sit tight for now. You’re still not all the way done cooking.”

“Gabriel, what did you do to Asmodeus?”

“Why do you care?” Something in Sam’s face must have spoken for him. “Fine,” said Gabriel. He got up and helped Sam almost gently to his feet. “Behold.”

Sam craned his neck, squinting against the sun – and then felt suddenly, violently sick to his stomach. It was all he could do not to vomit on Gabriel’s boots.

“I borrowed Cas’s and Inias’s blades,” said Gabriel. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ll clean them before I give them back. Might take a while for him to die, though.” He gazed up at the billboard. “Isn’t that the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”

Asmodeus was pinned to the surface of the billboard. His suit was soaked in blood. The two angel blades had been driven through his wrists.

REPENT AND TURN TO GOD, the billboard blared.

“You _crucified_ him,” said Sam, his stomach twisting.

“Way back when, it used to take two, three days to die. If you were unlucky.” Gabriel shrugged. “He was right about one thing: a regular angel blade can’t kill him. But that gut wound –” He whistled. “I give him a week,” he said. “Assuming nobody finds him in the meantime.”

He was still smiling: a bright, empty smile.

“Gabriel – Gabe, please,” said Sam. “Just kill him. This is –”

“This is _what,_ Sam?” said Gabriel. “He had me for four years. He tortured me. He fed off my grace. I deserve whatever satisfaction I can get.”

_It’s the only solace we’re ever gonna get._

“It’s not gonna help,” Sam pleaded. “It’s _not_. I’ve been where you are, I – just kill him, Gabriel, please. He deserves to die. But this – it’s not worth it. I –”

“You’re telling me you don’t want him to suffer? After everything he did to you? Everything I watched him do?”

Sam hung his head. There wasn’t any way of explaining himself. He was exhausted and hurting and sick. He wanted to be away from here. And – why deny it? – a dark, guilty, shameful part of him agreed with Gabriel. Wanted Asmodeus to suffer. _Solace._ But –

“Please,” he said. “Gabriel, please.”

There was nothing else he could think of to say. He was reminded, perversely, of their final meeting at the Mystery Spot, when he’d been begging for his brother’s life. Gabriel’s eyes blazed.

Then without another word he raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

Asmodeus’s head lolled.

“There you go,” Gabriel bit out. “Happy? I never could say no to you.”

* * *

It began to rain as they crossed through Utah. The car was a write-off: the tow truck had taken Inias into Fallon, and he’d come back an hour later with a rental. Gabriel was gone by then. No goodbye. Sam didn’t know why he’d expected one.

He was in the back of the car, a couple of Tylenol taking the edge off his hurts, watching Cas’s chest rise and fall as he snored. He’d slept himself, for a little while, and then he’d found himself dreaming. A nightmare. He was standing in the shade of the billboard, looking up at Asmodeus. Only Asmodeus hadn’t been unconscious: his eyes, sulphur-yellow, glared down at Sam, and when he opened his mouth to speak blood poured out.

 _You can’t kill me, boy,_ he spat. _I’m alive inside you._ He smiled. _You ain’t_ never _gonna be rid of me,_ he said, and Sam began to scream –

He shuddered awake. Inias was laying on the horn. “The driver of the red Subaru didn’t use his signal when passing,” he said to Sam. “You can go back to sleep.”

“Yeah,” said Sam, shakily. “Right.”

The rain smeared itself across the windscreen.

* * *

It was four days before he saw Gabriel again. He and Cas had been working on the devil’s trap with the material they’d taken from Santa Clara. Inias had finished healing them both as much as they could be healed: Cas’s burnt hand was beyond even angelic powers, but they’d taken him to the clinic in Lebanon, and it had been cleaned and bandaged and pronounced okay for now.

He’d fallen into bed around one-thirty. He was dreaming of walking in the woods around a campsite in Washington state where he’d stayed for a couple of weeks with his dad and Dean, the summer he was eight, when he felt eyes on his back and turned around. Gabriel was slouched against a tree. “It’s you,” said Sam in surprise.

“Nothing gets past you, huh.”

Before he could think better of it, he blurted, “Why did you leave?”

“Didn’t know if you’d really want me hanging around. After – well, everything.” Sam opened his mouth. “Oh please, forget the _Star Trek_ speech. ‘It was just a moment of weakness, Gabriel. That’s not really you.’” His eyes were hot. “You wanna know what I was doing the past couple of weeks?” he said.

“Gabriel, I –”

“Asmodeus didn’t capture me all by himself. I was sold to him. By some friends of mine.” _Meeting old friends._ Sam began to understand. “I’ve been hunting them down,” said Gabriel. “They’re all dead now. Everyone who helped him.”

Sam swallowed.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, so –”

“What I did back there, what you saw,” said Gabriel. “That’s who I am. What I am. I wanted Asmodeus to die slow and bloody, and I wanted to watch every minute of it. I wanted to hear him beg me for mercy.”

He fell silent. Waiting for something, maybe: for Sam to turn away from him.

Sam said, quietly, “Yeah. Me too.” Gabriel cocked his head _._ “I always thought there was something wrong with me, you know? Even as a kid. I used to get so damn _mad._ But I figured if I tried hard enough, prayed enough, I’d – I don’t know. Exorcise that darkness inside me somehow. And then – then the Apocalypse happened, and everything after that, and I started to think, well, maybe there’s no scrubbing it out. So I just pretended it wasn’t there. I thought, well, if I save enough people, make the world that little bit safer – maybe that’s all that counts. And then Dean disappeared and all the darkness came spilling out.” He’d started to shiver. “Back there,” he said, hardly able to get the words out, “when Asmodeus offered me the knife –”

“Let me guess,” said Gabriel. “You considered it for a second. Hm?” Sam stared. “So you’re not a saint. Can’t say I wouldn’t have considered it, either, if I were you. And I _am_ a saint. Technically.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, you took a little peek into the abyss. But you stepped back from the edge.”

Sam said, brokenly, “I haven’t always. I –”

He couldn’t look at Gabriel as he spoke. He heard his own voice as if it was a recording – as if it was nothing to do with him. Talking about Selena. About what he’d done to her.

“Asmodeus understood it,” he said. “He pretty much told me we were two of a kind. So I get it, Gabriel. Jesus, I wish I didn’t – but I do.”

He wondered, as he stopped speaking, if that was it: if Gabriel would decide he was a lost cause, disappear from Sam’s dream and head to Fiji like he’d planned. But Gabriel didn’t move. He said, “So now you’re gonna – what? Join a twelve-step programme?”

“No,” said Sam. “I mean, I don’t think so, anyway. But I – I can’t deny that part of me exists. Not anymore. So I’m gonna face it, and I’m gonna – I’m gonna deal with it. ‘Cause I don’t know about you, but I want that son of a bitch out of my head.”

Gabriel nodded. He didn’t speak right away.

“Angels,” he said at last, “we don’t question ourselves. Not really. What’s the point of self-reflection when you’re purpose-built? Doubting yourself, trying to do better – that’s a human thing.”

Sam said, carefully, “Maybe it doesn’t have to be.”

He took a step forward. Gabriel’s eyes widened – but he didn’t move away. Sam reached out. And then – _thank you God, thank you –_ Gabriel reached back. Their hands seemed to fit together. For a half-second he was back in the blissful, electric moment when his soul had reached out for Gabriel’s grace. He didn’t let go.

“Maybe not,” said Gabriel. “What the hell.” He squeezed Sam’s hand. “I’m done running,” he said. “You’ve saved my ass twice. And you’re gonna try to pick that lock whatever I tell you. So you might as well have me along. Think of me as damage control.”

“You –” Sam stumbled over his words. He couldn’t help feeling that speaking aloud might cause the dream to burst like a soap bubble. “You’re really gonna help us? With the Mark of Cain?”

Gabriel gave him a half-smile.

“I’ve got some ideas,” he said. His hand was warm in Sam’s. Light burning under the skin. “See you when you wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who doesn't like Dan Quayle jokes? Well, Dan Quayle, probably. But other than him.
> 
> Anyway - that's all she wrote, folks! Hope you enjoyed. Leave a comment if you're so inclined, or come say hello on [Tumblr.](https://havendale.tumblr.com/)


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